On Friday, Oct. 25, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) in Edgecomb held a dedication of their outdoor classroom and a family celebration. They welcomed Roger Gies, a friend to CTL visiting from California, to participate in a ceremony dedicating the outdoor classroom to his mother, Barbara Balmos Gies.

Gies thanked the community for their warm welcome and talked about his mother’s love of children and her volunteer work. He recalled once observing her through the library window: “Children were gathered around her feet as she sat in a rocker, looking up at her as she held the book out to them.” He believes she would highly value the literacy-rich environment found at CTL.

Gies himself is a lover of the outdoors and wanted to see CTL have a classroom in the woods to further support the hands-on science curriculum, where students collect data for current scientific studies, partnering with scientists at the University of Maine, the Department of Marine Resources, Bigelow Labs, and other ongoing professional research.

CTL’s timber frame classroom was built by collaboration. Current parents, alumni, alumni parents, and previous school interns donated to an annual appeal in 2017. Westport resident and alumni parent Lydia Kitfield provided the funds to get the project started and connected the school to Edgecomb timber framer Travis Chapman. Current parent and Boothbay carpenter Ross Branch filled in the frame and gave the building the warm and welcoming feel it has today. Jane’s trust and the Davis Family Foundation provided CTL with grants to fund curriculum, instruction for students, the structure itself, and also the creation of educational fieldwork resource kits, which are available for Maine teachers to borrow and use in their own classrooms.

As the sun began to set on Friday afternoon, families meandered down the woods path, lined with nature-based art and lanterns, to visit the wooden enclave at the back of CTL’s eight-acre property. Parents enjoyed seeing their students’ enthusiasm for the space and their comfort in the woods. Following these tours, the community gathered in CTL’s Barn to eat together, sing, hear students read their poetry inspired by nature (including seventh grader Kestrel Linehan’s first place poem, “Ocean Beauty,” winner of the 2019 Norm Strunk Outdoor Writing Contest), and present Gies with a book written for him by the kindergarteners detailing what they love about being in nature. In his book, Cora Coleman of Whitefield writes, “I really like being able to play in the mud in our mud kitchen.” Lila Milden of Damariscotta describes learning to “carefully hold a frog,” and Mariner Day of Waldoboro says she likes being “in the woods on this spot.” Students are grateful to spend part of their days outdoors, watching, playing, and learning in nature.

In total, Gies spent about a week at CTL, learning alongside students and deepening his understanding of CTL’s workshop approach in the classroom, where student choice and voice remains at the center of the learning. CTL believes that raising young people to be deeply connected to the natural world will be crucial to the choices that we make about how to take care of our world. CTL’s outdoor classroom is a study station, an observation room, a place to huddle up and be together when it rains, and a home base for engaged and curious kids. It’s a visual and physical reminder of how much the community values connection to nature and how time outdoors feed us all. 

To learn more about the outdoor classroom and science curricula at CTL, visit c-t-l.org or call 882-9706 to set up a tour.