About PEC

Local teacher Heather Maes participated in the Park for Every Classroom (PEC) program offered by Essex Heritage and the National Park Service - she implemented a project  with her students at Appleton Farms as a part of the PEC graduate credit course, taught by Essex Heritage staff & offered in partnership with Salem State University. This is her story ... 

"Out of all the classes I’ve taken at Salem State University, the Park for Every Classroom course has been the most rewarding. The course focuses on place-based service education (PBSL). 'Place-based' refers to local land and history; 'service' refers to community engagement. The goal is to create a project that benefits both the students and their community, all the while exploring local culture. In August, participants explored this concept in a one-week institute, where topics from sustainability to local history  to youth-based, student-driven projects were discussed. The course was jam-packed with activities; everyday, we were kept busy from morning to late afternoon. A highlight for me was the trip to Baker’s Island in Salem. We spent a whole day exploring the environment. 

Currently, I am in the middle of a place-based project with Appleton Farms. Thus far, we had a self-guided nature walk, a tour of the cow barn and a sorting activity with winter vegetables.  I am hoping to have one more field trip by the end of the year. Our end goal for our class is to create an herb garden, using the sustainable farming techniques learned from Appleton Farms. What is great about this project – and about Appleton Farms – is that nature is the best teacher. Our trips to the farm were accessible to all of our learners, because each student was able to enjoy a different aspect of the farm. Some students enjoyed the natural landscape, while others liked the animals and vegetables. They got something substantial out of these trips, and they will be applying the knowledge from these trips in their final project.

I am glad to be participating in this course and would recommend it to anyone interested in service learning. After all, in order to be a better global citizen, you need to a local citizen first!"

Heather Behrens, Peabody, 8th grade: Local Climate Change Mitigation (7 minute video)

Under the guidance of teacher Heather Behrens, 7th grade science students at Peabody’s Higgins Middle School worked with Salem Sound Coastwatch to develop two years of engaging place-based project work centered around water quality and climate change mitigation in their community through Essex Heritage’s Park for Every Classroom teacher professional development program. Students monitored and analyzed water quality in Peabody ponds throughout both years, detailing seasonal changes, looking at macro-invertebrates that indicate water health, and testing for other changes in PH, salinity and turbidity. The students collaborated with a 5th grade class to share results and compare research. They also looked at the city’s industrial history to better understand how this might contribute to water quality challenges. When Covid-19 shut down in-person learning, Heather continued to gather specimens for students to analyze and they were able to put together a digital brochure about their findings. As Heather moved into a second year of challenges with Covid-imposed restrictions, she did not let this deter her from providing engaging project experiences, this time with a focus on local climate change disruptions and mitigations with support from Salem Sound Coastwatch. She had students meet over Zoom with the Middle School’s landscape designer to understand the design of culverts, rain runoff systems, and gardens all designed to mitigate the effects of water contamination and flooding associated with climate change.  Students took close note of these designs outdoors and tested these systems’ efficacy. When it was safe to do so, they had a celebration of this work at their school and invited partners to join in a clean-up.

Quote from Heather Behrens: “I have been excited to see how invested my students have become in their sense of place.  My students enthusiastically gathered their data collection supplies and lab journals weekly (rain or shine) to add to their biological, chemical and physical inventory that our classes were creating.  Their learning was attached to authentic data collection, artifact observations, citizen science data bases, interpretation of data, and dissemination and sharing of their scientific findings. The project allowed students with very different learning styles to find success and allowed them to think of themselves as scientists in very real ways. I found that my students became increasingly engaged and enthusiastic about their own learning the more they played a meaningful role in the planning and implementation of our project.  Truly, their academic achievement improved, as they received weekly assessments for their outdoor journals and reflection on their data collection.”

Lynn 8th grade social studies teacher Jenny Winter helped her students understand the under-represented story of slavery in the local region through a partnership with the Lynn Museum.  Students met with museum staff to understand how the collections might illuminate this story.  They used objects and documents to explore the issue and came up with ideas for how the museum could create an exhibit about slavery in the North.  In this way, the students created connections to their community and also encouraged the museum to engage with new audiences.  Helping diversify the stories that the museum offers to visitors became the authentic need that the students addressed with their project. 

“The PBSL professional development has been, by far, the best PD I have attended, ever. I hope I taught my students to appreciate local museums and histories, but also to not be afraid to question their content and make connections with their community partners, whatever they will be in the future.” - Jenny Winter

Pictures of project on Jenny Winter’s project

Students in Gloucester High School’s art classes were introduced to artists whose work helped to give voice to prominent issues such as mass incarceration. Working with local artists and the Cape Ann Museum, the students researched issues in their own community that had meaning for them and developed works to give voice to these issues. When a pandemic caused schools to shut, they projected their works outdoors on their teacher’s home and held a community-drive-by to help “give voice to the voiceless” through art.

Quote from teacher Emily Harney: “Creating an experience where students could take ownership of their work by; selecting their own target group within the community they felt needed a voice and creating a work of art to provide that voice, allowed the students to become a community stakeholder in playing a meaningful role in the project.”

Haverhill 4th – 6th grade teacher Germaine Koomen helped her students understand how their community is intrinsically linked to the history, geography and culture of the Merrimack River through a series of cross-disciplinary field explorations and linked classroom-based activities. 

Partnering with educators at Joppa Flats Audubon Center, Camp Bournedale Environmental Education Center, and Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Reserve, students developed an awareness of our watershed and learned what they could do to protect our water.  They dissected fish and interacted with tide pool creatures in the local food web, and studied the life of the Penacook Indians, as well as industrialization’s impacts on the river. They learned the vital role of salt marshes in carbon sequestration, as nurseries, and as protectors from flooding and filtration of toxic chemicals. Through this hands-on exploration, students gained an appreciation for the role of the river and Great Marsh on the local ecological and cultural landscape.

Armed with this new-found knowledge of and appreciation for the river, they conducted a survey of the student body that revealed a lack of awareness about the river’s impacts. They decided to address this need by conducting research and science projects to educate others at the school and their families.  They published a book about the animals they researched. As a culminating demonstration of their learning and service, they each chose a topic to examine and present to the student body on World Water Day. They also began to clear a path behind the school to create a nature trail so that the river can be seen.

“Through this experience my students made deeper connections to our community.  They have a greater awareness of the roles of our watershed, our river and our ecology.  They have learned to make connections between “textbook” history and “real life” history.  The studies of plate tectonics, continental drifts and glaciers are now much more meaningful since they can be directly linked to our current world.” - Germaine Koomen