Vinalhaven and North Haven schools are among recipients of grant funding from the Maine Department of Education. In total, $1.8 million in Climate Education Professional Development Grants were awarded to seven academic projects with the intent of allowing Maine schools to partner with climate and environmental community organizations to strengthen climate education for students. 

Teaching Resilience: Professional Development for Climate Curricula is a program Vinalhaven and North Haven schools have designed with community partner Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership. This program will build teacher capacity and curriculum for both schools to engage meaningfully with local community partners on student projects.   

“The Climate Education Professional Development Partnership offers our schools an amazing opportunity for teacher collaboration and student learning,” said Monte Selby, superintendent of Vinalhaven School, in a MDOE news release. “Vinalhaven School, North Haven School, and the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership will all work together, thanks to the financial support from the [Maine DOE] Office of Innovation. I look forward to seeing the project implementation in the coming months.” 

Along with Vinalhaven and North Haven schools, awards in this first round of funding were also granted to School Union 93; Central High School in Corinth; Fryeburg Academy; Greenville Consolidated School, Saco, Biddeford and Dayton schools; and RSU 12.

All five schools in School Union 93 will partner with Maine TREE and the Woodlawn Museum this spring on interdisciplinary climate education instruction, a district-wide climate education plan, and professional learning about Project Learning Tree for Pre-K through 8th grade students.  

The grant initiative was designed out of LD 1902, which was passed by the Legislature in 2022 and signed by the Governor to establish a pilot program to encourage climate education in Maine public schools. Priority was given to communities historically underserved by climate education, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, and interdisciplinary, place-based, and project-based learning activities. A second climate education RFA will be announced early in 2024. 

Central High School will partner with Hirundo Wildlife Refuge to run professional development programming on Pushaw Stream. Teachers will learn about forest ecology, macroinvertebrate sampling, as well as receiving Educational Trip Leaders and Wilderness First Aid certifications. These will all be combined to enable Central High School teachers to guide students on and around the Pushaw Stream waterways.   

Fryeburg Academy will partner with a wide range of community-based organizations throughout the Western Maine Region and New Hampshire, with teachers working with partners individually and in small groups to design projects and curriculum for students in and out of the classroom. 

Greenville Consolidated School will partner with the Rural Aspirations Project to create elementary and middle school place-based science maps, align their curriculum, and design middle school climate intensive units.   
Saco, Biddeford, and Dayton Schools will collaborate with the Ecology School, with one cohort of teachers meeting virtually during the spring to cover climate change-specific content areas and align them with the curriculum and a teacher institute in June that will bring together teachers from all three schools to cover climate change content and design curriculum for the fall.    

Sheepscot Valley RSU 12 educators will participate in a three-day professional development workshop with community partner Friends of Cobbossee Watershed. Educators will adapt and align existing watershed-specific curriculum with school standards and develop a rich foundation of region- and lake-specific environmental and climate content knowledge for use in the classroom.   

Teaching Resilience: Professional Development for Climate Curricula is a program Vinalhaven and North Haven Schools have designed with community partner Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership. This program will build teacher capacity and curriculum for both schools to engage meaningfully with local community partners on student projects.   

"Teachers of School Union 93 are excited to collaborate with community partners to develop and deliver a professional development program to educate teachers on climate change, its impact on the environment and surrounding peninsula, and how to instruct students to explore climate-related topics. This work will result in a Union-wide climate education plan that will serve as an everlasting resource for the schools on the peninsula," said Dawn McLaughlin, Assistant Superintendent of School Union 93.  

"Maine (TREE) is ecstatic to work with School Union 93 to bring climate and forest-based education to schools on the Blue Hill Peninsula. This collaboration between the School Union, Maine TREE, and Woodlawn Museum will provide a long-lasting impact on the students in the region and provide a model for how to develop regionally designed climate education programming for students in rural parts of Maine," said Logan Johnson, Executive Director of the Maine Timber Research & Environmental Education Foundation (Maine TREE).   

"Although educational research shows that an interdisciplinary and project-based approach offers many advantages, especially when it comes to the study of global issues such as climate change, there are significant challenges to meaningful implementation in the classroom, coordination across the faculty, and engagement with the community. At Fryeburg Academy we immediately recognized the value of this grant for closing some of those gaps,” said Dylan Harry, Director of Outdoor Learning and Research Center at Fryeburg Academy.  

“Teaching students about the environment that they live in is vital. Part of that teaching comes in the form of climate education.  Climate changes greatly impact each and every one of us in one way or another. Having the opportunity for hands-on, experiential learning brings these issues to the forefront for students. I am excited to work with a team of local experts, both environmental and educational, on designing a curriculum that brings more awareness of Climate Change and its impact on our lakes, ponds, and rivers to the students,” said Jana Diket, Middle School Teacher at Windsor Middle School. 

“The Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed is really pleased to be partnering with RSU 12 and the Maine State YMCA Camp on this Climate Education Professional Development.  With the challenges we are experiencing due to the effects of climate change, we are excited to bring together educators from across the region to form a network for ideas and best practices. Utilizing the watershed lands and waters as the classroom brings the power of experiential and hands-on teaching pedagogy into the hands of the teachers on the front lines,” said Tom Mullin, Executive Director of Friends of Cobbossee Watershed.  

“RSU 64 in Corinth is excited and grateful to have received funding to provide professional development to our staff through the Climate Change Grant offered by Maine DOE.  We will be holding training in Wilderness First Aid and for the certification as an Educational Trip Leader for up to 20 of our staff and from RSU 34 as well. This is a critical need for us because we have a very active outdoor community in our towns and we want to capitalize on those interests by opening the door to water-based activities for students,” said Dr. Rad Mayfield, Principal of Central High School.  

Maine continues to be a leader in outdoor learning and climate education, according to MDOE. The Maine DOE’s Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures (RREV) initiative, funded through a $16.9 million federal grant, has supported the expansion of outdoor education classrooms, programs, professional learning, partnerships, and spaces across the state. Schools across Maine utilized federal relief funding to expand outdoor learning spaces and programs. Governor Mills’ Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative has provided thousands of Maine middle and high school students with coastal and inland forestry learning and career exploration opportunities during the summer. The Maine DOE recently hired a Climate Education Specialist to support and expand this work with educators, schools, and community partners across the state. You can learn more about the Maine DOE’s climate and outdoor education work here.