Four Hancock County schools receive outdoor education grants
By Lizzie Heintz | The Ellsworth American — View the full article here.
ELLSWORTH — Four schools in Hancock County had classroom grant recipients of up to $1,500 from the Maine Environmental Education Association’s Mini-Grants for Outdoor Learning program this year.
Dedham Middle School’s Gil Maxwell received the maximum allocation of $1,500 to buy snowshoes for students to learn winter survival skills in his outdoor education classroom this year. According to Maxwell, only about a quarter of students had ever used snowshoes before; with the purchase of snowshoes for the classroom, students are now able to further their outdoor education by learning winter-based skills they were unable to before.
“The students were amazed at how the forest was a completely different world in the winter and how the possibilities of travel opened up,” Maxwell said in a press release from the Maine Environmental Education Association. “I had many students tell me they went home and asked their parents for a pair of their own snowshoes.”
Other classrooms in Hancock County that received grants include Bev Hawkins’ classroom at Sedgwick Elementary School for $1,486.05, Megan Flenniken’s classroom at George Stevens Academy for $950, and two grants at Mount Desert Elementary School: one for Garden and Greenhouse Coordinator Patricia Kelley for $1,000 and one for Sarah Dunbar’s classroom for $650.
Flenniken’s grant is the second she has received for students at George Stevens Academy. Last year, she used the funds to buy thick jackets and rain pants for students to use in colder months to continue enjoying outdoor learning.
This year, to continue her project, Flenniken used the grant money to build eleven benches in the outdoor learning area to make outdoor learning more accessible for students across all school departments.
The Maine Environmental Education Association has been awarding classroom mini-grants for three years, with this year’s cycle being the most expansive. The program began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and according to the association, over 30,000 Maine students have benefited from the grant money in the last three years.
A total of 105 schools in every county in Maine benefited from the grants this cycle, receiving a total of $153,083.63. Over 35 percent of public schools in Maine have received funding since the creation of the program, including 308 unique teachers and 233 different schools, according to the Maine Environmental Education Association.
Further, grants toward schools with 80 to 100 percent free and reduced lunch rates are prioritized in the selection process.
The Maine Environmental Education Association plans to continue this mini-grant program, with outreach focusing on schools underrepresented as recipients of grants in previous years.
