Furthering Catlin Gabel’s strategic planning initiative to foster student connection to the environment | Environmentalism
By Catcher Kemmerer, ‘24
I am submitting a proposal to Upper School administration to further Catlin Gabel’s strategic planning goal of fostering student connection to the natural world. Image source: http://www.catlin.edu
Catlin Gabel School has proven remarkably transparent in communicating its strategic planning initiatives since their implementation began with the 2017-18 academic year. These initiatives include a commitment to “encourage appreciation for and understanding of the natural world.”
In its strategic plan, the school states several goals to fulfill this commitment: incorporating instruction and encouragement of sustainable practices, providing learning opportunities that connect students to nature, and highlighting the interconnectedness of stewardship and appreciation for the environment.
In a recent email to me, Assistant Head of School Barbara Ostos acknowledged that she wished the school had more effectively carried out this strategic planning initiative since it was set in place.
Yet despite the partial stagnation of this initiative--which has encountered an enormous obstacle in the COVID-19 pandemic--the Lower School excels in its efforts to promote student engagement with the environment. Its students enjoy substantial unstructured outdoor activities, outdoor learning, and environmental education.
“We give the younger kids a lot of outdoor time,” said Upper School Science Teacher Bianca Nakayama, who specializes in biology and ecology, in an interview. “[Upper School students] would benefit just as much from having outdoor time. It’s kind of a bummer that we lose that as we grow up, because I think it could be really beneficial.”
An analysis of studies published in Frontiers in Psychology found that “proximity to greenspace has been associated with lower levels of stress and reduced symptomology for depression and anxiety,” while a Stanford University analysis of 119 peer-reviewed science research articles examining the effects of environmental education on academic performance found that 94% of studies on the topic demonstrated positive outcomes in environmental subjects and 95% found positive outcomes in non-environmental subjects.
Adolescents are inclined to spend time outdoors, as well. A 2020 University of Michigan survey found that 88% of youth ages 14-24 “wanted to spend more time in nature”; 22% acknowledged barriers to doing so.
Lower School Science Teacher Robbyn Leventhal and Lower School Music Teacher Peter Musselman highlighted the importance of place-based learning to environmental connection to place-based learning in an email interview.
“We would like our students to be stewards of the community and to realize that they have a responsibility to care for the land so that it continues to provide for future generations,” they noted. “We believe in the value of place-based learning.”
They highlighted an Edutopia article discussing place-based learning, which states that “place-based learning engages students in their community, including their physical environment, local culture, history, or people.”
Leventhal and Musselman also noted the importance of Catlin Gabel’s Tiny Forest--the first forest of its kind in Oregon--which began as a project spearheaded by Upper School Social Studies Teacher Patrick Walsh, in applying outdoor experiential learning to various subjects.
“Now that we have this Tiny Forest, it is becoming integrated into what we are doing in science,” they wrote. “Tracking the growth of plants, caring for the land, and just taking time to be outside in the fresh air are just a few of the ways it is currently being used.”
By extension, Nakayama argued that even the instruction of courses not obviously inextricable from environmental issues can benefit from a focus on the environment.
“There are so many demands on our time,” observed. “Obviously, no one’s teaching to the AP test or teaching to a standardized test, and yet there still are these outside pressures … we need to get through a relatively traditional curriculum, so maybe it doesn’t occur to [school employees] that they can incorporate our campus into a class where it might not be a traditionally obvious fit.”
Lindsay Babbitt, the Director of Outdoor Education at Catlin Gabel, highlights environmental and outdoor education as a means of impactful collaborative experiential instruction.
“Of [the skills taught in the Outdoor Education program], ‘expedition behavior’ is really important to me,” she told me in an interview. “It is basically how students work in community, and I think that is a huge transferable skill, to being successful academically and in real life.… [I] and a lot of other outdoor educators think of ourselves more as facilitators or guides rather than teachers. We’re here to let these experiences teach you, and then help you reflect on what you learn and how you can apply that to your life.”
To address the Upper School’s areas for growth in providing students with meaningful opportunities to connect with the environment, I have composed a proposal to further the school’s commitment to foster student connection to the environment, highlighting the Lower School and other academic institutions as models for student environmental engagement. The proposal outlines ten steps Catlin Gabel administration can take as possible next steps to fulfilling the goals it set in its most recent strategic plan in the Upper School:
Establish routine interdivisional meetings designed to integrate environmental education across disciplines and create school-wide goals;
More extensively connect the school’s Outdoor Education Program with faculty;
Increase continuity between grade levels in Upper School environmental education;
Use the Tiny Forest as a space for environmental education;
Set a minimum annual outdoor learning objective or requirement on a course-level basis, which may vary based on instructional time;
Establish three outdoor learning spaces on the Catlin Gabel campus;
Create incentives for students to commute outdoors by biking or walking;
Prioritize parent outreach on the value of unstructured time outdoors and ensuring a balance in student screen time;
Make slight reductions in workload policy to allow for an additional 30 minutes of student free time weekly; strongly encourage parents and students to use this time outdoors in an unstructured manner; and
Reintroduce “campus days.”
The full proposal aims to shape the school’s focus on student environmental connection to positively impact student mental health and academic performance. I will share it with Head of Upper School Aline Garcia-Rubio shortly after the publication of this article.