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MFC 2.0 - School Year 2019/2020

How can we use natural resources to positively impact local communities?

Students from Buckfield, Forest Hills, Greenville, Mt. Abram, and Piscataquis High Schools participated in the first full year of MFC programming.  Projects abruptly ceased when COVID19 forced schools into remote learning.  We held our spring cohort day on  March 6th with  great enthusiasm and participation from many community partners, and schools shut down the following week.  Below is a snapshot of the projects students worked on but were unable to complete.​

 

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Buckfield

Buckfield High School

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Students from Buckfield High School participated with Caleb McNaughton, their Environmental Science teacher. 

Challenge #1: Driver education is hard to access for low-income students which prevent them from participating in Maine's economy and natural resource activities.

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Solution: Students prepared a proposal to convince the school administration to incorporate drivers' education in the school budget.

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Community Partners

  • Buckfield High School Administrative Staff

  • Maine Department of Transportation

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Challenge #2:  The permitting system for Maine hunters has too many separate permits and fees.  This is too expensive for low-income Mainers and complex for those wanting to hunt.

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Community Partners:

  • Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

BUCKFIELD GROUP 1.jpg
Forest Hills

Forest Hills High School

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Students at Forest Hills participated through their Junior English class guided by teacher, Rae Wren.

Challenge: The Jackman region is isolated and usually unknown to those not familiar with this part of Maine.

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Solution: Students want to create a promotional video of the region and social media campaign to raise awareness of the opportunities that exist in Jackman.

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Community Partners

  • Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation

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Forest Hills MFC Comunity Poster
Greenville

Greenville Consolidated School

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Greenville High School students worked on the MFC project in their environmental science class, taught by Selena Tardif, with assistance from Dawna Blackstone, the physical education instructor at GHS. 

Challenge: The trail on Greenville High School property is run down and unsafe for students and community members to use.

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Solution: Create an action plan to update the trail for the school and community and improve the educational value of the trail.

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Community Partners

Maine Conservation Corps

Mt. Abram
Mt. Abram High School

The students at Mt. Abram high school worked through their environmental science course, with guidance from teacher, Brandy Tanner. 

Challenge: The Kingfield region doesn't have enough young people moving to the area to live there full time.

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Solution: Create a website that showcases what the area has to offer to Millenials looking to move to Maine.

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Community Partners

  • Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation

Mt. Abam MFC Community Poster
Piscataquis
Piscataquis High School

The Maine Forest Collaborative project was offered to Piscataquis students for the second year as a stand-alone class, taught by Stephanie Kimball.

Challenge: The community of Guilford doesn't have an outdoor gathering space for social events or classrooms.

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Solution: Students created a landscape design and action plan for King Cummings park.

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Community Partners

  • Town Office of Guilford, Maine

  • Maine Audubon Society

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Student Outcomes

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Project Outcomes
Process Outcomes
Guiding Principles

  1. Articulate a personal connection to the local natural resource economy, markets, and ecosystems.

  2. Investigate complex issues facing forests, drawing upon a wide range of community resources both in and out of school.

  3. Investigate emerging industries, technologies, and innovation.

  4. Collaborate with other students, natural resource practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and other community resources to apply available information to their understanding of natural resource management.

  5. Use a design process to create a solution to a challenge in a natural resource context based on application of current, adopted, or new technology.

  6. Understand and analyze the impacts of technology use on both the user and the targeted resource as it relates to the sustainability of both.

  1. Problem solving with a variety of strategies based on information available.

  2. Recognizing and making connections across multiple disciplines and learned information.

  3. Creating and using multiple representations to organize, record, and communicate solutions to complex issues facing natural resources and natural resource economies.

  4. Communicating findings with well developed claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases. (CCSS.ELA - Literacy.W.11 - 12.1.b).

  5. Using real world data to back up claims and counterclaims.

  1. Become a self-directed and lifelong learner who recognizes the need for quality natural resource information and knowledge from many different sources.

  2. Become a responsible and involved citizen who applies leadership skills to contemporary issues facing natural resource industries.

  3. Become a clear and effective communicator who applies advocacy skills, including research, argumentation, and presentation skills.

  4. Become a creative and practical problem solver who applies goal setting and problem-solving skills in novel situations in collaboration with other students, natural resource practitioners, research, policymakers, and other community resources.

  5. Become an integrative and informed thinker who gains and applies knowledge across natural resource disciplines and sources with and without technology.

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