POWERED BY NATURE
Middle school students enjoy an environmental adventure of a lifetime
POTTSTOWN >> Sometimes learning valuable lessons requires getting your hands dirty, getting your feet wet and climbing a few trees.
But that’s not something 168 Pottstown Middle School sixth-graders need to be told. Thanks to an effort to expand environmental education in partnership with Natural Lands, PECO and the NorthBay Adventure Camp, they already know.
Conceived as a program to provide real opportunities for multi-year outdoor education for fourth- to sixth-graders, the program is called Powered by Nature and is now in its third year.
That means the students who started the program in elementary school were among the sixth graders who recently made a week-long visit to NorthBay, located in Maryland’s Elk Neck State Park on Chesapeake Bay.
They were the program’s first students to visit.
There, they climbed rock walls, waded into wetlands, zipped through the trees, climbed ropes and learned about how we are all interconnected with the natural world around us, and with each other.
Each day ended with a professionally-produced, interactive theater performance that recapped that day’s lessons.
“It all started with Keith Williams, the executive director of NorthBay, who likes to go creek snorkeling,” said Oliver Bass, vice president for communications and engagement at Natural Lands, a non-profit open space preservation trust in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey that helped co-sponsor Powered by Nature.
“He liked doing it in Natural Lands preserves and he reached out to us to see if we might be interested in trying it, so a number of us joined him in the Brandywine and we started talking about what a wonderful educational tool it could be,” Bass said.
“And we both had a similar bias, we were both interested in getting students in urbanized communities to connect with the natural world. All too often environmental education is a one-off experience and we wanted to establish something that was more indepth, something that had more continuity,” said Bass. “And it just kind of fell together.”
It fell together in Pottstown both because of the school district’s compactness “and the cooperation and enthusiasm of the administration and the teachers. They were really very excited about this,” said Bass.
The result was Powered by Nature, made possible with funding from PECO and the Exelon Foundation.
“The Powered by Nature program connects students to local green spaces and teaches them that the choices they make affect their futures, the people around them and the environment,” said Keith Wil-
liams, Executive Director of NorthBay. “
The program starts slow but steady in fourth grade when students “do a habitat assessment of their own school yard. Then it’s a visit to Memorial Park and we get them into Manatawny Creek to do a simple water quality study,” said Bass.
The program also focuses on helping students understand that their choices affect not just their lives, but their community and the environment, and they have a responsibility to protect all those things.
“It was really something to see the look on their face when I asked them who owned Memorial Park and I told them they were the owners, that as part of the community, they have real ownership of this great park you have in Pottstown,” said Bass.
“Over the winter, they do turbidity studies and in the spring, we take them to Crow’s Nest,” a Natural Lands preserve in Warwick Township, “and get the kids into French Creek.”
In fifth grade, the interactions are monthly, involve frequent visits to Memorial Park, Mantawny and French creeks.
And by sixth grade, the steady build-up of environmental awareness culminated this year in the first of what Bass hopes will be many annual visits to NorthBay.
In addition to being aware of the environment, the program at NorthBay also helps the students become aware of themselves and each other.
“The district is very focused on social and emotional learning and this program dovetails into that
nicely, with the students learning how to work together as a team and learning about what they are capable of,” Bass said.
“It was really a fantastic experience for them,” said Ginger Angelo, a sixth grade science and math teacher at Pottstown Middle School.
Angelo said she was impressed with how the NorthBay program connected elements of nature with the social emotional learning that the district stresses in the middle school grades.
“The power of their choices is a huge part of the program, about how your programs affect the environment and connecting nature to kids’ lives,” said Angelo.
For example, “they asked the kids, ‘what’s your niche?’ connecting it to how different species occupy a niche,” Angelo explained.
“I think my niche is sports,” one student said on a video made of the visit.
“And they asked the kids ‘who is your filter?’” said Angelo.
“A filter for me was my mom, my dad, my sister, my friend Madison and my friend Kala because they show me the points of good, and what I should do and what not to do,” said another student. “And they always know if I’m sad, or anxious at all. And they always help.”
“They even asked the kids what their invasive species is in their lives,” Angelo said. “What the kids took away from this kind of surprised me. They really looked at themselves. Some even said we helped them face their fears.”
“For me, doing the zip line, it was the first time I
ever faced my fear,” one student says on a video about the visit.
“Because of NorthBay I’m going to come home differently by understanding nature and understanding what I do affects everything else,” said another student.
“I’ll leave NorthBay understanding why we should take care of our community and nature,” a third student said.
That kind of understanding, and interest in the scientific aspects of the world around us, is exactly the kind of thing PECO hopes to foster by helping sponsor the program, said PECO spokesperson Alexandra Coppadge.
None of the Pottstown students who attended, or the 14 teachers or nine parents who went along as chaperones, thanks to the sponsors who helped pay the program’s costs.
“We’re investing in the future and our future workforce with STEM education programs like this,” said Coppadge. “Those students may end up being PECO scientists and helping us make the transition to sustainable energy.”
“This dynamic program is designed to help students appreciate that the choices they make have the power
to transform the planet, their community, and themselves,” said Molly Morrison, President of Natural Lands. “Our goal is to inspire them to see themselves and the natural world in a new way and we are immensely grateful to the Pottstown School District, Northbay, PECO, the Exelon Foundation, and our other supporters for joining us in this unique collaboration.”
“Our students and our parents are so excited about this opportunity to participate, not just in an outdoor field trip, but in a once-ina-lifetime experience that will help them grow in their understanding of the natural world, as well helping them grow in understanding themselves,” said Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez.
Following their visit to NorthBay, students will design and implement an action project based upon their three-year experience with Powered by Nature.
In fact, they do that at the end of each year, said Bass.
“One year, they picked up around the school yard, another they made environmental posters they put up around the school. One year, they cleaned up Memorial Park and documented and cataloged what they found,” he said.
“The key is everything leads to action,” said Bass.