Excerpts from my 30-minute keynote speech for the University of Maine’s Summer Educators Institute, to an audience of rural Maine public educators, 6/26/26
Before I jump into who I am, why I’m here, and inspire you to change the world by going outside, I want to start with a story.
About ten years ago, after I had co-founded Maine Outdoor School, I was working with a Pre-K class in Washington County and one particular girl, I’ll call her Lola, became fascinated with the slugs in the schoolyard. When I was her age, I had a traumatic experience involving doing a cartwheel right onto a slug, resulting in the slug’s demise and a very memorable feeling of my mom’s fingernails trying to scratch off the slug goo from my palm at the kitchen sink. But Lola, in her one hour Maine Outdoor School program, let the slugs crawl all over her hand, shared observations about their colors and shapes, and was full of giggles and smiles.
A few months later, I went to the bank to deposit a check, where I discovered Lola’s mom worked. She said that Lola had started collecting all the slugs and snails out of her garden.
A year later, Lola had moved on to a fascination with frogs.
A few years later, she was old enough to join our day camp for girls focused on developing outdoor recreation, gardening, and naturalist skills.
A year after that, she stepped into a leadership role at that camp.
Just seven years after I met Lola, who’d only had a one hour Maine Outdoor School program at her school each year of elementary school until she attended our four-day day camp when she was eleven, her mom shared that Lola had realized something about her future. Lola had thought her only options for staying in Washington County long-term were to become a banker or a nurse. After her Maine Outdoor School experiences, she realized there were many more jobs available to her, especially in the outdoors, if she wanted to stay in the area. She realized it was possible to have a job she was passionate about in the place she loved. She could envision a future where she thrived, just like those slugs in the schoolyard.
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Humans evolved outdoors telling stories, so this morning I want to share with you two other interconnected stories: first, a personal one of my journey as a public school kid who grew up in rural Maine, the effect that hands-on, outdoor science classes had on me in college, and how jobs in the environmental education field around the country then inspired me to co-found Maine Outdoor School. And second, why outdoor learning is essential and some basics on how to do it.
Take a moment to think back to your K-12 education, and specifically, a science lesson you remember.
My most memorable science class was on my first day of AP Bio in a high school about a half hour from here: I failed the pre-quiz and then dropped the class. Today, I have a Master’s of Science and run a business centered on outdoor, science education. So how did I get from there to here?
Well, it was the beginning of my 6th grade year and I was at a new middle school where privileges like chewing gum and buying nachos or ice cream at snack time gave us a taste of freedom that rivaled even what adults seemed to have.
And then there was science class. My teacher passed out shiny, hardcover textbooks about a half inch thick adorned in photos of tropical plants and animals. She asked us to open to the first page, then, she turned it over to us. Each student read one paragraph aloud, then passed it on to the next student to do the same. That is what I remember from 6th grade science—reading the textbook aloud.
Meanwhile, I spent my free time outdoors. I remember my first little pair of cross-country skis and figuring out what snow conditions made for the fastest ride downhill in them, going on foraging forays for mushrooms and fiddleheads with my Aroostook County family, and trying to identify every single animal track or scat in the woods and fields behind my house.
By age 9, I realized that I loved camping so much, that I moved into a tent in the woods behind my house. My dad even built me a tent platform on a big rock surrounded by trees when he realized it wasn’t just a childhood phase. That was my bedroom from April to October each year until I left for college.
From that tent, I learned how to identify a variety of night sounds, like the call of a barred owl. I came up with a numbered pattern to match its rhythm —like my own mnemonic—that I would remember until the next morning when I could compare it against a description in a field guide.
But during my K-12 years, I didn’t see any of those experiences as science. That idea was especially reinforced in 7th grade when my science teacher closed the shades on a moose walking by the window so we could better focus on the overhead projector. In school, my straight A’s came not from observing the natural world, but from memorizing distant facts, which I was actually great at. Until AP Bio.
I do have to give my 8th grade science teacher some credit here—we made models of elements and participated in the Fish Friends program, where I remember raising a two-headed salmon and releasing it in the local stream. I later went on to coordinate the Fish Friends program for several years.
My sophomore biology teacher’s overhead projector lessons involved a lot of fill-in-the-blanks and notetaking skills that not only made lectures more engaging but also inform my notetaking to this day. We also did hands-on labs in that class. I was enjoying science. So signing up for AP Bio seemed a logical next step.
Before school was out my sophomore year, the AP Bio teacher for my junior year handed out the textbooks so we could study up over the summer. I prepped for AP Bio while visiting cousins in Alaska that summer, reading through the textbook in between kayaking through a salmon run, identifying Sitka spruce and salmonberries, and seeing otters slide on black volcanic rock in the midnight sun.
When school started, I felt like I had really done some pre-work for biology. I was ready to go. Then came that fateful pre-quiz. All I remember is a question about organelles and a sense of growing panic. As soon as I got my grade, I knew I just wasn’t cut out for science. I quit, using some excuse about the demands of my other classes and part-time job—anything to make it seem like this straight A student wasn’t a failure.
Now fast forward to college: I went to College of the Atlantic, which has one major: a BA in Human Ecology. COA students have to take a little bit of every subject to really make that interdisciplinary major shine so the first thing I wanted to do was get my science requirements out of the way.
I took Trees and Shrubs of MDI during my first term and suddenly science was outdoors, tangible, and relevant. I had loved nature all my life, but my K-12 education didn’t teach me that nature was science. Outdoor learning in college repaired that disconnect.
When I went home for winter break and walked in the woods by my old tent platform, I realized I could name the ashes, firs, spruces, and wild sarsaparilla that had surrounded me the whole time. It was like I was finally learning my neighbors’ names after years of taking them for granted. I felt even more connected to the outdoor world, which, coming from a kid who slept outside half the time, didn’t quite seem possible. By the time I graduated from COA, I realized that I wanted to share with others what I never had in public school—that the outdoors can teach us much more than a textbook and help us find our passions and a sense of belonging.
So, I drove across the country to work at an outdoor school in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. I taught ecology and geology to 6th graders outside for a year, taking them to see giant sequoia trees that were wider than a circle of 35 11-year-olds could encompass when they linked hands, and into a cave 200’ beneath the surface of the earth to see stalactites and stalagmites. We met California state science standards at this outdoor school every day, but we didn’t touch a textbook. We played games, journaled, sang, modeled, and witnessed the processes and ideas they were supposed to learn about in school. Some schools recognized that their students performed on standardized tests better after outdoor school, so they timed their weeks with us to correspond with when their testing occurred.
I taught for other outdoor education programs around the country for the next couple years where I was introduced to the idea of the “science circle” as opposed to the scientific method. The science circle invites us to ask questions over and over and over again, knowing that each time we come to a conclusion on a scientific question, we go around the circle again, we learn more, come up with more questions, get more skilled and confident, but also humble, every time.
From childhood, to college, to teaching science outside across the country, I shifted my thinking from the idea that science was a body of intangible facts to be memorized to science actually being interesting and right in your backyard to science being a process that never ends—yielding information that can be further refined as we learn more and try new things.
Through these experiences, I realized that outdoor learning is not one more thing to add to the overflowing plate of public education. It is a way to do the things we already care about better.
So this is when I went to graduate school. My goal with my former business partner was to use graduate school to build and blend our skills in science education and business management to co-found an outdoor school in Maine, which we cleverly named “Maine Outdoor School.”
Since 2016, I have had the great pleasure of making science fun and interesting for public school students (and their teachers) across eastern Maine along with my amazing team of other traveling Naturalist Educators. By making outdoor, hands-on, place-based science part of the regular public school routine, my hope is that students later run towards science rather than try to get it out of the way like I did. To find their passions and picture a future where they are thriving, like Lola and I both could.
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Now I know not all of you are science teachers, but science is embedded in every subject and experience we have. Science is the process of noticing, asking questions, and figuring it out using good resources and data—it’s critical thinking at its best. When babies put different objects in their mouths for consideration, they’re being scientists. When kindergarteners are noticing letter shapes and the patterns that make a word, they’re being scientists. When 5th-graders do a project on one of the fifty states and ask questions about it and consult trusted resources to learn more, they are being scientists. And when middle schoolers realize that a hoodie and crocs make them shiver when they’re outside in the winter, they’re also being scientists.
So I think embedding this process of critical thinking based on observation is key to good education, and learning that sticks and feels relevant and tangible, but why does that matter?
I’m a very purpose-driven person, so I always like to remind myself of the reason for doing something before I do it. If any of you use the Understanding by Design framework for curriculum-planning, you know what I mean—we start by figuring out the results we want to achieve before we dive into planning the lesson’s specific activities. Otherwise, we lose track of what we were trying to do in the first place.
So let’s practice that now before we move on—what is the point of education? Think about that for a moment. What is the point of education?
In 1947, Martin Luther King, Jr, said, “It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life…The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals….We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”
For me, and I think so many of us, the whole point of education is to prepare students for a life of wellbeing. Not a life of surviving, but thriving. And not just thriving within ourselves, but within the environments in which we live. This means that those environments around us must also thrive in order for us to thrive.
As Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai said, “Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it.”
Again, outdoor learning is not one more thing to add. It is a way to do the things we already care about better.
And because public education is the one institution designed to reach every child, outdoor learning cannot be reserved for families who camp, ski, garden, hunt, fish, hike, or have time and transportation to wild places. If connection to place, wellbeing, curiosity, and stewardship matter, then every student deserves access to them during the school day.
If the point of education is to fill society with thriving, efficient, moral, critically-thinking humans that understand that their capacity to thrive is directly correlated with their environment’s capacity to thrive, where do we even begin?
My answer will always be: outside. Beyond the fact that humans evolved outside, learning from nature, and it’s only within very recent history that we’ve turned education into an indoor, somewhat factory-like setting, there’s now some good science that explains why outdoor learning is not enrichment, but one of the most direct ways public schools can meet the goals they already have. I’m going to focus on just three of these goals that fit under that umbrella of the purpose of education, though there are many more: empathy, health, and engagement.
First, empathy. A person’s capacity for empathy develops largely in early childhood. And that capacity for empathy is limited by what children are exposed to. Practicing naming feelings, sharing, or taking turns in the classroom among other human peers helps develop a capacity for empathy for other humans. But if we are only exposing children to other humans, the capacity for empathy for the other living things we humans rely upon is limited.
When we go outside and we practice observing nature with our senses, we encounter a diversity of species—from plants and fungi to bugs and birds—and we can’t help but consider how their lives compare to our own, and, with thoughtful guidance, how essential all our local native species are to our wellbeing through the ecosystem services they provide, like pest management, air and water filtration, decomposition, and simply beauty and awe.
So simply existing amongst biodiversity enhances a young child’s capacity for robust empathy—and that’s not something that can be replicated in an indoor setting.
The second reason outdoor learning is essential to achieving the purpose of education is to simply enhance physical and mental health.
If I were to measure your blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels right now, then we went outside for twenty minutes to a green space, then I measured you again upon our return—all those metrics would have dropped. Lower blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels occur after just twenty minutes outside. And, self-esteem and mood increases.
The third reason outdoor learning is essential is engagement. I regularly have teachers warn me about students with ADHD or other behavioral challenges before I take their classes outside. But I rarely notice which students those are when we’re actually out there, hands-on, and learning together. Spending time in nature replenishes voluntary focus and enhances social interaction skills and problem solving. Children with ADHD in particular concentrate better after twenty minutes spent outside.
What I find even more fascinating is that after an outdoor learning experience, teachers can teach uninterrupted for almost twice as long during a subsequent indoor lesson. This is where I argue that you don’t have time to not take your students outside—doing it helps you be twice as efficient in the long run.
Those California schools that scheduled their testing to occur alongside outdoor school weeks? They were onto something, as regular outdoor learning is proven to improve test scores and graduation rates—and reduces suspensions.
Increasing engagement at school is not just about making school more fun. It is about making learning available to students whose brains and bodies are asking for movement, novelty, relevance, and air.
I want to highlight here that developing empathy, improving health, and academic engagement primarily come not from intensely planned lessons outside—those benefits come primarily from simply being outside in green spaces for just twenty minutes. That’s it.
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A barrier I sometimes hear from teachers is that they don’t know what to do if they were to take students outside—that they don’t know enough about nature or science to teach in that space. Don’t put that pressure on yourself. You can start by simply doing whatever you were planning on doing inside, but outside instead. Whether that’s a read-aloud, a worksheet, or even a test.
The next level would be to model scientific thinking and learning. Remember that science isn’t as effective when framed as a set of facts to memorize. This is why, when I’m wearing my Registered Maine Guide hat, my guided outings for adults and families are not “drag and brags” where I just tell everyone what plants or birds they are seeing, but rooted in getting participants to notice, ask questions, and reason their way to a conclusion—with guidance.
So simply going on a walk with your students with the goal of noticing and asking questions about what you observe outside can serve as an effective anchor for a range of subjects—not just a science project aimed at figuring out what you’re seeing out there, but a math project analyzing the colors of flowers blooming in different places, or a creative writing project inspired by the setting. Maybe your students are learning to recognize shapes or other patterns and your goal can simply be to find those patterns in nature.
There’s so much you can do to incorporate the outdoors into your existing routines all on your own in a way that doesn’t add to your long list of to-do’s, but in a way that literally doubles the amount of content you can teach once you return inside.
We are lucky as rural educators to have forests, fields, shorelines, working landscapes, and communities full of local knowledge behind so many of our schools. But even in more urban settings, that dandelion pushing through the crack in the pavement, or that pigeon snatching trash still count as nature and still offer tangible, outdoor learning experiences, as does observing the changes in the weather and the shapes of the clouds.
And, there are resources for outdoor learning all over the state. TeachME Outside is a great resource to check out what options exist in your area—from organizations offering field trips and overnight experiences to at-school program series, like what Maine Outdoor School primarily does.
Whatever you may choose, however, keep in mind that regular routines of outdoor learning have the most positive and effective impact on students’ learning experience, not just one immersive outdoor field trip in a child’s entire K-12 journey. So if you can incorporate a daily, or even weekly, nature walk at school and complement that with an occasional field trip, that’s an ideal blend.
Take a moment and think about what outdoor routine you could incorporate into your work.
Now think about the last time you spent twenty minutes in nature. Maybe you were walking your dog, gardening, or reading a book next to a view. Think about how that experience made you feel.
Raise your hand if it made you feel calm, happy, or less stressed. Now raise your hand if you wish you could give your students the gift of feeling calm, happy, or less stressed. That gift is free and just out your door.
As Rachel Carson said, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
This healing contemplation of the earth goes back to that ultimate purpose of education: to fill society with thriving, efficient, moral, critically-thinking humans that understand that their capacity to thrive is directly correlated with their environment’s capacity to thrive.
And all it takes is a regular routine of 20 minutes outside integrated into the great work you’re already doing. If you do nothing else after today, try this once a week after school starts again: take your class outside for twenty minutes and ask only three questions — What do you notice? What do you wonder? What does this remind you of? That is enough to begin.
And I hope you look at your school doors differently. Not as the edge of the classroom, but as the beginning of one. Open it often. Let students belong to the places that are already holding them. That is not a break from public education; that’s public education at its best.
I always say that if all Maine public schools do this work on their own so they don’t need me anymore and I work myself out of a job, then I’ve succeeded. But until then, I’m here to help.
References and resources for further reading: