Visiting author and illustrator Jim Arnosky (standing) guides fourth grade students in observation and recording in their journals at the Hemberger pond in Norwich.

Imagine a classroom where students learn to formulate questions and find different ways to seek answers. Open space where children record discoveries in written journals and sketchbooks. A place where it’s okay to get wet and muddy when you search for minnows, salamanders, and animal tracks.
Can you picture a class of first graders sitting still as they listen for birdcalls in the meadow? Or, envision fifth graders finding their way around in the woods using natural and man-made clues, maps, and compasses. How about sixth graders helping to remove invasive plants? Most importantly, in this classroom, you’ll see students get excited about the natural world around them.
Add to this dream classroom, a visiting author to inspire the students. An author they can spend class time with, outdoors, seeing a tree or drawing a vernal pond in a whole new way.
There is such a classroom, many such classrooms, beyond the walls of the Marion Cross School, thanks to LEEEP, Learning about the Environment through Experiential Education Projects. The special addition of recent visits to the classrooms by Vermont author and illustrator Jim Arnosky was initiated by a group of parents and teachers, and made possible by the Milton Frye Fund.
“LEEEP was the brainchild of several teachers who saw a need for a resource person to share both expertise and knowledge in environmental education,” said Lindsay Putnam, environment education coordinator for LEEEP. “My general focus is to work with teachers to get the students outdoors to learn about habitats through hands-on experience.”
“Whenever possible, we take an interdisciplinary approach to the projects,” she explains. “The visit by Arnosky was a great team effort.”
Each LEEEP project may involve many disciplines beyond environmental science including art, music, literature, and physical education. The visit with Arnosky, a nature educator and journal writer from Ryegate, Vermont, was a collaborative effort of many teachers: librarian Susan Voake made Arnosky’s books available and read to the students; art teacher Tracy Smith helped the children create a journal; music teacher Carolyn Keck taught the students a song about one of Arnosky’s characters called “Crinkleroot;” each classroom teacher incorporated the habitat into the curriculum; and Putnam helped the students learn about the site and the environment they would visit.

A journal page created by Frank Simpson.

The excellent preparation was evident to all, including Arnosky when he commented, “These students are amazing. They know the books and the characters. They asked questions and made observations.” Observation is key to Arnosky’s work. “The best school is to go outside and look, just stare. Everything I know is through experience. Nature is my greatest teacher. Schools are just starting to have programs with personal experience. What a joy to be able to sit down and write from the experience. This will stay with the child for the rest of his or her life.”
Marion Cross School has been ahead of the experiential curve for many years. In 1998, several teachers recognized the need to develop a resource to help teachers provide students with hands-on field experience and created LEEEP. Because the school budget could not support a new initiative, LEEEP sought private funding to launch the program. As outlined in a grant proposal, the program has three main goals: 1) to promote and support the school’s tradition of experiential environmental education so that it is valued and embedded in the school culture; 2) to foster a stewardship ethic, along with a sense of community, through active participation in service projects; and 3) to integrate these experiences with the existing curriculum, including physical education and the arts, but particularly science habitat studies. A recent spotlight in the PTO newsletter explained the goal in somewhat simpler terms: to instill a “sense of place” in students at all grade levels by helping them to understand and appreciate our precious natural environment, teaching age-appropriate methods of scientific study, encouraging cooperative learning, and fostering caring habits toward peers, our town, and the world around us. LEEEP serves all grade levels at the Marion Cross School, K–6, population 325 students. In addition, service learning projects ultimately serve the Norwich and Upper Valley communities, while making real life connections with the students and community members. A tall order, to say the least, but one Putnam is getting her hands around.

Lindsay Putnam, environment education coordinator for LEEEP, draws in her journal at Hemberger’s pond.

"I like how the program has come along after four years. It’s evolving, while adding to the students’ experiences each year,” said Putnam.
The team at Marion Cross School has accomplished quite a bit in four years—the development of grade level resource guides, field training workshops for teachers, and focused study and projects in the field including: stream habitat observations and identification, forest observations, the meadow habitat, orienteering, Nature Trail stewardship, animal tracks and signs in the snow, wetlands field trips, and Green-Up Days.
“This program has made a difference,” said Putnam. “The children are curious; they look closely. They use language learned in the field, and they remember what they learned in earlier grades as they take the learning to a new level.”
Each grade level studies its own habitat, and skills learned are built upon in each successive year of school. Kindergartners enjoy time exploring in the nature area, first graders visit the meadow, second graders explore the stream, and third graders study the forest. Fourth graders report on the wetlands including bogs, marshes, ponds, and vernal pools, fifth graders study rivers, and sixth graders explore the ocean. The students enjoy the use of the Milton Frye Nature Area, Ballard Trail, and Blood Brook, as well as other areas in Norwich. The Milton Frye Nature Area, the backyard of the school, was conserved by the town in 2002 with the help of the Upper Valley Land Trust, Norwich Special Places, and the Norwich Conservation Commission.

Visiting author and illustrator Jim Arnosky helps second graders at Marion Cross “see” the tree on the playground in a whole new way.

“Stewardship of the environment is an important component woven into the study of the habitats,” explains Putnam. “We also encourage the students to do something for the community that relates to those habitats.”
One could say, both literally and figuratively, that the students’ learning extends beyond the walls of the school. When third graders recorded the tracks of animals in the forest, they reported their findings to the Special Places Committee in a wildlife inventory. Fifth graders worked with the Norwich Conservation Commission to study the invertebrate or “bug” population in Blood Brook, an indicator of water quality, and displayed their findings at the post office. Sixth graders have been involved in nature area maintenance through community service electives.
“Environmental education should be a part of every child’s experience here,” said Putnam. “We want to broaden environmental education at the school so every student learns about, and will become a steward of, our environment.”