Portland Public School Second Grade
District-wide fieldwork in Portland Public Schools (PPS) continues to grow! As part of PPS’s Wabanaki Studies curriculum, every second grade student in Portland visited Mayor Baxter Woods, a 29-acre open space in the Deering Center neighborhood, in early May. Alongside Passamaquoddy member Minquansis Sapiel, students explored the woods while learning about Indigenous cultural connections to forests and trees such as the Brown Ash.
With friends from Maine Audubon, students investigated the different layers of the forest. Turning over logs, students found salamanders and other macro-invertebrates making their homes on the forest floor, while Gray Squirrels did acrobatic tricks high above in the canopy. Over the course of this four-day program, the forest was bursting with birdsong and the excitement of children exploring with classmates outdoors.
This visit to Mayor Baxter Woods is the newest installment of Wabanaki Studies, outdoor fieldwork for PPS students. In kindergarten, these same students visited the sugar shack at Portland Arts and Technology High School as part of their study of the Maple, and in first grade they visited Maine Audubon’s Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in Falmouth to deepen their understanding and relationship with animal and plant friends. Now in second grade, students are getting outside to further develop their environmental literacy and knowledge of indigenous values, practices, and even language, all from an array of Indigenous community members deeply committed to teaching Wabanaki Studies in schools.
Learn more about third and fourth grade fieldwork here.
Portland Public School First Grade
For the second year, we hosted every first grade student in Portland at Gilsland Farm as part of their Wabanaki Studies unit called Friends who Walk, Fly, Swim and Grow.
Through drumming and song, students were welcomed into fieldwork by Mihku Paul, Wabanaki cultural sharer and member of the Maliseet tribe (Wolastoqey). Together, students shared what they knew of the People of the Dawnland, and the names of the tribes that make up the Wabanaki Confederacy. Building on their year long-study of Wabanaki culture, students reviewed the Four R’s of indigenous culture (relationship, respect, reciprocity, and responsibility), and examined cultural artifacts with Mihku.
During the course of their visit to Gilsland Farm, students had the opportunity to practice the Four Rs. They made seed balls to support the growth of native plants, explored in the woods with hand lenses and binoculars, and looked for tadpoles and macro-invertebrates at the pond.
I’m grateful to Mihku, Maine Audubon educators and volunteers, and Trish Day and the Environmental Literacy team from PPS, who showed up each day to put on this incredibly joyful and thoughtful program for more than 500 students. We can’t wait to do it again next year and for many years to come.
