Environmental Education at the Princeton-Blairstown Center

Identification chart

Imagine a beautiful forest setting with clean air, miles of trails, and clear streams. Now imagine you were back in school in such a setting. Your teacher gives you a bucket, a net, maybe some petri dishes and magnifying glasses, and a species identification chart. Would you be excited for your lesson?

Environmental education is taught in classrooms around the world but there is something special about learning about the environment, in the environment that you are learning about. The National Environmental Education Foundation reported that students who participate in programs and activities outdoors show an increase in intrinsic motivation and improvement in student’s learning attitudes. You may not have access to a beautiful 268-acre campus like the Princeton-Blairstown Center every day, but that is ok! Your school yard, playground, or nearby parks and public lands work just as well when implementing an immersive environmental education curriculum.

Two students explore the water at the Center as part of their stream study.

Even if you are unfamiliar with environmental education but are willing and able to take your students on a field trip, the Princeton-Blairstown Center is the place to go! We offer fifteen curriculum-aligned programs for students featuring inquiry-based, hands-on science learning. Each program combines outdoor exploration with STEM- and SEL-reinforcing activities to help participants engage more deeply with science and the scientific method. Our environmental education curriculum is aligned to middle school curriculum standards. However, Center staff can help high school teachers plan the use of our outdoor classroom for higher-level, hands-on biology and environmental/earth science classes

Environmental education not only improves academic achievement according to the National Environmental Education Foundation but it also encourages environmental stewardship, deepens personal development and wellbeing, and strengthens communities.

Courses at the Center include everything from forest ecology, stream science, phenology and climate change to ornithology, nocturnal animals, and amphibian studies. Our Environmental Education page has course descriptions and previews.

Many species call the Princeton-Blairstown Center home and your experience may include canoeing by a busy beaver building a dam, listening to owls at dusk, or turning over rocks in a search for salamanders. Whatever program you choose, your experience will be authentic, engaging, and spark an interest in learning.

Students carefully hold salamanders.

Participants at the Center smile about their hands-on experience with salamanders.

STEM, SEL, & PBC

Sometimes it seems like there is a “day” for everything. There’s Pi Day, National Panda Day, National Puppy Day, National Potato Chip Day… we could go on. However, there are two events that the Princeton-Blairstown Center is especially interested in celebrating this month!

Four Summer Bridge participants pose for the camera.

 SEL Day, celebrated on March 11, is a way to celebrate the importance of social emotional learning (SEL). Social emotional learning is a mainstay of the Center’s programming and is woven into every single activity and course. We believe it is important to incorporate social emotional learning into our programming because providing SEL programming allows youth to practice and become competent in social-emotional skills such as learning how to identify and process their emotions, become more self-aware, and develop compassion and empathy for others. To showcase and promote our SEL curriculum and celebrate SEL Day, we shared pictures, videos, and articles on all our social media that relate to social emotional learning. We even share ALL our resources, including our SEL curriculum for middle- and high school students — for free. You can find all of our SEL resources here.

March is also NJ Stem Month! This month, all organizations in the state are called upon to showcase and celebrate their work in STEM. The Center has been actively participating in the month-long celebration of all things STEM by posting photos, stories, and videos on social media using the hashtag: #NJSTEMMonth. You can find all of our #NJSTEMMonth posts on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!

Summer Bridge participants work together on an assignment.

All our programming has SEL and STEM elements, but we have one program in particular that really focuses on both SEL and STEM: the award-winning Summer Bridge Program, a one-week leadership and academic enrichment program that focuses on developing social emotional learning skills, lessening summer learning loss, and helping students create strong relationships with their peers and with adults. During the week-long program, students are divided into small groups of 10-12 and paired with a trained facilitator and a school/agency chaperone.  Each group spends time engaged in hands-on Literacy, STEM, and SEL activities. Traditionally, the program is held at our campus in Blairstown, but with a global pandemic we decided to bring the program to the communities where our students live in 2021 and 2022.

Two Summer Bridge participants collaborating.

 The Center’s Summer Bridge Program is designed to serve youth from historically marginalized communities – free of charge. We realize that not everybody has the same access to resources and opportunities. This is our way of helping to provide quality SEL and STEM education to everybody!

Because we do want everybody to have a reason to celebrate SEL day and NJ STEM Month with us this March!

The Value of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in Difficult Times

Senior Program Manager, Ron Franco, leads SEL and STEM activities during Wilderness Leadership School.

As a former high school science teacher, I can tell you that there is always a lot to think about when it comes to planning lessons and managing a classroom. At the forefront of most “teacher-brains” is content: How should I teach this concept? When will I get to that before our standardized tests? Unfortunately, one of the things furthest from my mind was incorporating a comprehensive social emotional learning curriculum when I was trying to find the time, energy, and funds to include more projects; make sure my students did better on standardized tests; and scaffold lessons to suit individual talents and needs.  

COVID-19 has shown us that learning isn’t just about content. It is about feeling connected, being able to communicate, and having a safe space to feel a sense of purpose and belonging.

This post written by Emma García and Elaine Weiss of the Economic Policy Institute showcases why school policies and curricula need to change from focusing solely on content to putting social-emotional learning front and center. Staggering statistics including the fact that mental-health emergency room visits by middle- and high-school aged students have increased by 31% highlight how children need support to deal with their trauma, emotions, and grief.

When schools abruptly closed their doors for two weeks of “remote learning,” students and teachers thought they were in for a mini-vacation. But two weeks turned to four weeks and four weeks turned to four months and here we are, almost two years later still dealing with the turbulence of the pandemic. I tried to help my students cope by giving them hands-on assignments and sending personal emails and messages when they seemed to be falling behind or despondent. One student was a freshman in an honors biology class who was smart, cared about his academics, and provided insight into our daily conversations, until he lost his mom to COVID-19. When I sent an email after I learned of his mom’s passing, he replied that I was the only teacher to do so and that it really meant a lot to him. From then on, I made sure to email him occasionally to check in and give him the opportunity to talk even though I was not a counselor or social worker. I allowed him time and space to grieve and encouraged him to participate in class at a level that was comfortable for him.

The benefits of social emotional learning are undeniable. This brief written by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in collaboration with The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention found that SEL programs can have big benefits. After analyzing over 200 studies of different school based SEL programs, they found that participants showed a 9% decrease in conduct problems, such as classroom misbehavior and aggression; a 10% decrease in emotional distress, such as anxiety and depression; a 9% improvement in attitudes about self, others, and school; a 23% improvement in social-emotional skills; a 9% improvement in school and classroom behavior; and an 11% improvement in achievement test scores.  

The Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) believes so strongly that social emotional learning should be a priority that it is the basis for our mission. As we all continue to deal with the fallout of the pandemic, SEL programs are not only beneficial, but essential to students’ emotional and academic success. PBC is providing weekly SEL resources for teachers and educators to use in their classrooms or during virtual meetings to help students manage the additional ups and downs they have had to navigate since March 2020. These weekly emails are one way that PBC can provide teachers and others who work with young people with the tools to keep students connected to their peers and caring adults.

Part of a SEL activity provided by PBC to teachers via email during the pandemic

Goals and Goal Setting

Having goals is good. But setting attainable yet rigorous goals can be difficult. The situation in which goals are determined and the purpose for which they are set can also differ. Is there something you need to accomplish as part of a team, organization, or group? Or is there something you aspire to personally? As the new year approaches you have probably jotted down a few goals for yourself!

Goal setting is important. In the classroom, goal-setting drives students to be more self-motivated and helps them to focus their efforts in order to accomplish the goal. In many classrooms across the United States, it is best practice for the instructor to have a learning target displayed and explained for every lesson. The learning target is designed to be understood by students and direct the learning agenda. The instructor may refer to the learning target at multiple points in the lesson to show how their activities will help them reach their goal.

“Student Goal Setting: An Evidence Based Practice”, an analysis created by the Midwest Comprehensive Center confirms the benefits that setting goals has to offer. We can see that setting difficult yet attainable goals attributes to deeper learning and understanding and that setting a higher-level goal will push students to higher levels of effort. When students perceive that they are making progress and accomplishing their goals they are further motivated to learn.

Goal setting has been proven to aid learning across all ages and academic ability.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a tool used in education to help educators design thoughtful learning targets. It includes action verbs designed to create goals for specific learning outcomes and range in rigor. Bloom’s taxonomy categorizes cognitive processes into six levels. Starting from the basic level, Bloom’s Taxonomy sorts cognitive processes into these six categories:

Bloom’s Taxonomy

1.      Remembering

2.      Understanding

3.      Applying

4.      Analyzing

5.      Evaluating

6.      Creating

Each level lays the groundwork for students to climb to the highest level of learning.

PBC incorporates this best practice into its environmental education and Social Emotional Learning curricula. When students must work together to accomplish a goal, whether that goal is to climb a rock wall, canoe together, or identify invertebrates, they participate in breaking down and accomplishing the goals that have been set for them or by them. Our facilitators help them bring that learning home by asking the right questions that engage them in analyzing and evaluating their choices.

What are your goals for the new year?

Participants Get INstructed on How to Work together to maneauver their canoe

Summer Learning At PBC

It’s National Summer Learning Week! Each year the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) celebrates National Summer Learning Week to elevate the importance of keeping kids learning, safe, and healthy, ensuring they return to school ready to succeed. This year, the importance of making sure kids are prepared when they return to school is even more important than ever, and PBC is proud to be a partner in this work.

When schools first closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, many of us presumed that it would be a few weeks before students could return to the classroom; some districts did not plan for remote learning but rather used their scheduled spring break days and “snow” days to account for students not being in school for an extended period. As we know, those few weeks turned into months and, in some cases, more than a year of remote learning. Parents, teachers, and caregivers have seen the impact extended remote learning has had on students, particularly in the Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities. Students in these communities were more likely to have remained in remote learning situations longer than others and, according to a report from McKinsey, the cumulative learning loss could be six to 12 months, compared to four to eight months for white students.

Students at Achievers Academy in Trenton try their hand at the “walking A” activity, a teambuilding and communication challenge.

PBC’s award-winning Summer Bridge Program kicked off this month, bringing our summer learning experience to young people in Trenton and Newark completely free of charge. This one-week leadership and academic enrichment program designed to serve young people from historically marginalized communities in New Jersey was honored with the 2018 NSLA New York Life Foundation Excellence in Summer Learning Founder’s Award, which recognizes outstanding summer programs that demonstrate excellence in accelerating academic achievement and promoting healthy development for low-income children and youth between pre-kindergarten and twelfth grade. Summer Bridge is normally held on our Blairstown Campus, but hosting students overnight in small cabins seemed too great a risk given the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, PBC’s staff reconfigured the curriculum and logistics and came up with a plan to bring the Summer Bridge Program to participants in their own communities this year. PBC is continuing to partner with schools and community-based organizations in Trenton and Newark to provide 90 minutes of academic enrichment each day, along with a host of leadership, team-building, and problem-solving activities designed to build social-emotional skills in schoolyards and local parks.

The academic curriculum focuses on STEM and literacy in a series of hands-on, inquiry-driven, interdisciplinary outdoor learning experiences centered on equity and social justice, with a focus on the power of community gardening as a means of civic action and towards food justice. Students also form positive, supportive relationships with peers and adults while increasing environmental awareness and proactive stewardship of natural resources. In addition to meeting a wide range of Common Core Literacy and Next Generation Science Standards, the social-emotional elements of the Summer Bridge Program meet important Career Ready Practices and 21st Century Life and Career Skills that are critical pieces of the revised New Jersey Student Learning Standards.

A summer Bridge literacy lesson, held on-site at Achievers Academy as part of Summer Bridge 2021.

Students from Achievers Academy in Trenton participated in the first week of Summer Bridge and were happy with their experience. One student said she learned how to communicate with others when she was frustrated and another student said that this was the first time she had an opportunity to attend anything like a summer camp and how much fun she had canoeing. If the photos from their day at Blairstown are any clue, it’s safe to assume many other students felt the same way.

And as this year’s Summer Learning Week winds down, we are looking forward to a visit from the CEO of the National Summer Learning Association, Aaron Dworkin! He and several others from the team at NSLA, plus a potential future program partner, are slated to join us for an action-packed visit during a day of Summer Bridge on-site programming. We can’t think of a better way to send off this year’s celebration, and are excited for the many ways we might expand and enhance our partnership with the United States’ premier coalition of summer learning programs.

So Much More Than Soil - SEL and Gardening

As an embodiment of our core values, PBC’s facilitators strive to connect environmental experiences not just to academic concepts, but to social emotional learning (SEL) and social justice movements as well. This June, a time of year where our gardens are creating ample amounts of nourishing food for plates in Egner Lodge, we are exploring the additional role of the PBC garden in nourishing skills, meaningful connections, and the relationship between participants and the planet.  

As Todd McPherson, Urban Garden Coordinator at Luther Burbank High School mentions in Students Use Gardening to Develop Social Emotional Learning Skills, “A functioning and productive garden space [is also a] very interactive outdoor classroom…really, we can incorporate just about any discipline into the gardens.” Other interviews in the video make the case for conducting mentorship and other leadership lessons in a garden setting, which is something we have been facilitating with our Summer Bridge, Leader-In-Training, and Wilderness Leadership School participants for several years.

The video also emphasizes the observed increase in empathy among students learning and interacting with the living organisms endemic to gardens. The graduate thesis Growing Citizens: Students’ Social Emotional Learning via School Gardens elaborates on how “In addition to academic learning goals, gardening has the potential to provide students with a sense of empathy related to nature that may [help develop] pro-environmental stances later in life. Gardening may also contribute to the attainment of related citizenship skills such as collaboration and communication.”                               

Garden helpers hold up giant kohlrabi they helped harvest from the PBC garden. Produce harvests go to Chef Bob, who turns them into delicious meals for Egner Lodge.

Ron Franco, Senior Program Manager, shared some of his perspective about working with students in the PBC garden, and how observing and caring for the living things in a garden space are effective catalysts for deeper conversations and connections that reach far beyond the boundary fence.      

 “Over the past four years, [our] garden has proved fruitful in more ways than one can imagine. It provides an interactive, colorful, and lively learning experience for our curious participants, a place where we engage in thought-provoking, hands-on garden curriculum and activities.” As participants work together toward common goals in the space, they practice collaborative skills, and “rejoice in the wonders while soaking in colorful inspiration and novel experiences, such as tasting a vine-ripe cherry tomato or other garden treat for the first time in their lives…Hopefully, these eye-opening moments and stirring experiences will help ignite [participants’] interest in sustainable agriculture, green movements, and food justice. Through the garden, PBC helps plant a small seed of hope and opportunity for our future nature-conscious leaders.”

SEL and Mental Health

May is Mental Health month. In a year where mental health stressors have arrived at the forefront for both students and adults, the role SEL can play in mental health outcomes is worth examining.

Even in “regular” (i.e. pre-pandemic) times, SEL and mental health were considered intertwined. In a brief prepared by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in collaboration with The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, Connecting Social and Emotional Learning with Mental Health, the organization asserts that “Addressing children’s mental health is critical for school and life success. Social and emotional learning programming, when implemented with fidelity and integrated into the fabric of the school and community, provides students with the skills they need to be successful within an environment that promotes their physical and emotional safety and well-being.” However, in the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic, social emotional learning tops of the list of recommendations for classroom educators for what they can do to best support students’ mental health during COVID.

But, why should that be the focus? While the answer is not truly linear, the CASEL brief outlines the cumulative positive effects of robust SEL programs. By increasing the number of tools a student has to both identify and navigate periods of stress and challenge, their ability to be flexible and resilient increases, and ultimately, mental health interventions become less frequent. According to CASEL, “SEL programming may reduce the number of students who require early intervention, because participation in SEL programs fosters in children the skills they will need to cope with life’s challenges and helps teachers manage their classrooms in ways that promote interest and engagement, all within a caring school environment.”

Participants work together to accomplish goals, enhance communication skills, and strengthen relationships with peers and adults through experiential learning led by PBC facilitators.

At PBC, our experienced facilitators work with students to hone social emotional skills through experiential and adventure education. This approach to teaching SEL - markedly different in practice from most classroom- and school-based SEL initiatives - was recently studied in a group of students in the UK who were all classified as having social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties – arguably among those most in need of mental health supports. The researcher concluded that outdoor and adventure education may offer additional benefits above and beyond those of the classroom efforts, because “as students engaged in outdoor learning activities, they used core SEL skills in combination rather than in isolation. This may differ in – and be an advantage over — how students use SEL skills in classroom-based programs. Another distinct advantage of outdoor SEL intervention programs is the reliance on group work, which provides students with opportunities for developing effective social interactions, communication and relationships.”

Supporting mental health can’t just be focused on screen-free time, or mindfulness, or connecting struggling students with school counselors and therapists. The evidence suggests that incorporating SEL is key to improved mental health outcomes for youth, especially with COVID not yet behind us.

SEL and the Outdoors

The focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) at the Princeton-Blairstown Center is in everything we do. As an outdoor, adventure, and experiential education-focused organization, it means that SEL is the thread that ties all of our activities and programs together. For this Earth Month edition of Compass Points, we considered the many natural intersections of social-emotional learning and our outdoor and environmental programming.

Research published in the Journal of Adolescence studied an Outward Bound group’s experience with SEL and highlighted the program’s positive impacts on the students’ ability to “successfully endure distress and a process of experimenting with new mindsets that helped them rise above their anxiety and distress…and found that peers provided skillful and responsive on-the-spot support that motivated youth, helped them succeed, and scaffolded students’ learning strategies for dealing with physical, social, and emotional challenges.” The novel situations brought about by adventure education, and the fear and anxiety that accompany almost all situations that involve the new and unknown, can be used as perfect jumping-off points for experienced facilitators to dive into emotions and mindset shifts with outdoor education participants. The coping skills, strategies, and tactics that come out of those discussions can then be translated to classroom learning and beyond.

A research survey compiled by Green Schoolyards America asserts that “fewer, longer sessions of outdoor learning (education outside the classroom) are more beneficial than more frequent, shorter sessions and lead to improved pro-social behaviors among students.” This is another strength of organizations like PBC, which can - and do! - structure most participant activities around the experience of being in the out-of-doors. Sharing experiences in that space, along with thinking and learning in that context with peers, can offer new and different perspectives for any member of modern society, particularly one which seems increasingly expected to spend the majority of its time indoors. 

Also noted in the Green Schoolyards piece is that “blended learning that combines traditional education with forest school or other models of outdoor curricula enhances children’s social interaction skills, builds confidence, promotes problem-solving and independence, builds negotiation skills, and supports creativity.” In this year of extraordinary disruption to all areas of society, we have been fortunate to offer two full semesters of Wilderness Leadership School (WLS) for local students, at a time when our regular partners were unable to attend on-campus programs. WLS offered a weekly all-outdoor, full-day learning format, compounding the social-emotional learning opportunities such curricula can provide to a group of students whose traditional learning and extracurricular activities have been disrupted in unprecedented ways. In providing for public health and safety considerations, we were able to tap into both the healing power of nature and the many opportunities for increased learning, health, and future success that outdoor learning provides.

If the pandemic has reinforced anything for those of us in the outdoor and adventure education field, it might be that before, we could agree that these experiences were important – now, we can all loudly assert that they are not merely important, but in fact critical to the development of the social-emotional skills that enhance the grit, resilience, and overall success of all people.

International SEL Day at PBC

The second International SEL Day is happening today, March 26th. This day of recognition invites communities across the globe to celebrate the importance of social emotional learning (SEL). This year’s theme is “Building Bonds, Reimagining Community,” which traces closely the arc and aim of the programs that PBC provides for thousands of young people each year.

Adam Faller, Assistant Director of Operations and Staff Development, talked about PBC’s process. “The sequence that we build with students, whether virtual or in person, is to start with building relationships and group norms.” An intentional small group setting helps promote interpersonal connections and the ability to reflect and connect with the others in the group. “We try to focus on all aspects of social emotional learning, in any length program. Our debrief exercises really focus on the entirety of the social-emotional learning spectrum,” said Adam. “Yes, sometimes people get angry, frustrated, or upset – but all of that provides learning opportunities for them, and for us.”

When thinking about an activity that is particularly applicable, Adam described an exercise that uses a maze with just one exit that participants try to complete while blindfolded. “You put them in a maze that effectively has no end, and say ‘If you need help, just raise your hand.’ Inevitably, there are almost always a few [participants] who will refuse help and continue to wander the maze indefinitely. This exercise really speaks to all the pieces of the SEL wheel – am I self-aware enough to ask for help? Can I recognize other people asking for help? Am I comfortable asking peers or leaders for help? And so on.”

Director of Programs Mark DeBiasse described an instance where an intensive focus on SEL over the course of several weeks in the PBC Leader-in-Training Program proved transformative.  A teacher in Newark schools who also serves as a member of the PBC Advisory Council mentioned one student who had participated as an LIT II, staying on Campus for six weeks. “It was clear to him and to the other faculty that this individual was challenged when it came to social-emotional learning through their observations of the student in their school setting, especially in regard to self-awareness and self-regulation,” said Mark. The teacher and others felt this student had tremendous potential but would often see them exhibit behaviors or make comments that reflected a lack of age-appropriate SEL skills. “While speaking about the impact of PBC’s programs, [the teacher] went on to describe the maturity and personal growth that he and the other educators observed at school and in the classroom after the student’s summer in the LIT program.”

Facilitator Tabs Alam shared a perspective about how SEL work can not only contribute to personal and individual growth, but also the growth and development of a group. One particularly impactful group that she facilitated was a session with the Center for Great Expectations, a nonprofit that “provides transformational mental health and substance use disorder treatment to women, children, men and families impacted by trauma, abuse and neglect.”

Great Expectations “were willing to really challenge themselves and one another over the course of their program,” said Tabs. She described how the dynamics and demographics of the group required her to tap into her full range of facilitation skills since they were starting from a place of knowing one another very well and were also committed to being completely honest with themselves and each other; in a way it was often difficult to be with other people in their lives. “They wanted to learn how to really respect and support one another. It was very different than working with student groups; often, it is hard to know what might be too much, what the triggers might be, versus with this group - everything was on the table. And if something [really difficult] did come up, they would work through it together.”

The group was simultaneously dealing with a host of complex, difficult, and deeply personal challenges. “They had dealt with all kinds of different things, like sexual abuse, substance abuse, trauma, attempted or failed family reunification…Many were in the program because they were trying to prevent family separation and/or relapse into substance abuse.” With all members of the group living together but also working through their own high-stakes challenges, small interpersonal conflicts could result in larger emotional or even physical fights. Forgiving one another was easy, but preventing future conflicts was harder. After completing some of the group activities together, a lightbulb moment emerged.

“One of the women stepped up and said, ‘I always think that people are trying to correct me, and it makes me so mad…what I sometimes don’t realize is that all these people here are trying to correct themselves the way I am trying to correct myself. I forget that people lash out because they, too, are dealing with their own [trauma].’”

Tabs chose activities to specifically address things like exploring and breaking down different communication styles, which would make an impact on the ways that people related to one another immediately but also served to assist with things like the interpersonal conflicts in the shared living space over the longer term. Other activities included a Celebrity Charades game that helped people recognize and talk about the different “masks” they sometimes wore, and why. Over the course of several days, the lateral efforts of the group challenging and supporting one another amplified the effect of Tabs’ facilitating: “They were doing these activities with others who they had already given permission to push and challenge them, rather than me always needing to challenge or push someone myself. And I made it clear to them too - even if this conversation doesn’t happen in front of me, it’s still happening and it’s still progress. Those [are the kinds of] effects that go far beyond what I alone can do in an initial program.”

By the time the program concluded, it became evident that the group was on the right path for long-term cohesion and committed to continued growth, together. “They started to demonstrate how self-aware they were about the role they played in each other’s lives and recoveries – they all seemed to feel like, I need to hold these people very tightly, because they have become an essential part of my growth.”

Order From Chaos

For almost a year, PBC has been providing social emotional learning lessons and resources for teachers and families to use in the new learning environments to which we’ve all had to become accustomed. Each week, an email arrives with a carefully curated lesson designed for teachers and other youth development professionals to use with their students. Lessons are designed to be engaging, fun, and educational and may include activities to develop literacy, environmental education, or social emotional skills. Each one provides questions to follow each activity that can be discussion starters or journal entry prompts.

Earlier this month, one of the lessons was titled “Order From Chaos” as a nod to the chaos we’ve all been experiencing and how there can be order as well. We thought our Compass Points blog readers might like to see one of these activities for themselves and maybe you can play along with your family.

If you would like to receive these emails each week, please email pbc@princetonblairstown.org.

Download the activity here, or see below for the full activity plan.

Activity: Order From Chaos

Champions Adjust!

It is the first month of a new year. Not just any year, either – a year following what we have all heard described repeatedly as: Unprecedented. Anomalous. Exhausting. Chaotic. As the “craziest year of our lives” requiring us all, in many senses of the word, to “pivot.”

Like every other individual and organization, all the forecasting and planning that we put together to map the year 2020 was immediately rearranged as the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic arose. Then, shuffled, rethought, and rearranged again as the worst-case scenarios we feared took hold, and reconfigured yet again when the pandemic persisted for many weeks and months, all the way up to today.

It is not a surprise that organizational course corrections are sometimes needed. That is why we track initiatives, priorities, and statistics, hold performance reviews, organize work plans, and create budgeting and maintenance forecasts. Often, small tilts of the wheel are enough to keep the plan moving along the track when circumstances change around us. However, the magnitude of the changes that occurred in such a dizzyingly short time frame posed significant hurdles for our entire staff, even without the backdrop of a global public health crisis.

But in 2020, every department rose together, again and again, to meet the (many) challenges PBC faced. When groups were barred from coming to our beautiful Blairstown Campus and meeting in person, program staff used their resourcefulness and ingenuity to create virtual programs for our students and online audiences. When classroom learning was abruptly moved online, and teachers and students shared the challenges and mental health impacts of this format, program staff and communications staff created a weekly SEL email for teachers that could be used in Zoom classrooms to enhance social connections and SEL skills while adhering to social distancing. Finance staff successfully applied for Federal Paycheck Protection Program loans and continually tracked and readjusted budgets to keep the organization fiscally sound. Maintenance staff scaled up their plans, tackling extensive repairs, deep cleanings, and other tasks that would ordinarily be too disruptive while students are using Campus facilities. Perhaps more amazing is that these changes were implemented successfully on top of the changes the pandemic created in many other facets of everyone’s lives.

The Senior Leadership Team meets each January to identify our organizational priorities and set the plan - and tone - for the coming year. In reflecting upon how the organization reacted and continues to adapt to the changing landscape, they came up with a working mantra for the year: Champions Adjust.

It is abundantly clear that large-scale changes for the Center, and in our personal lives, will continue until Covid is squarely in the rearview. Until then, we’ll adjust.

Virtual Summer Bridge - A New Learning Adventure

Last month we shared the disappointing news that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) would be unable to welcome groups of students to the Blairstown Campus for our award-winning Summer Bridge enrichment program this year. As most Compass Points readers know, the PBC Summer Bridge program is designed to ameliorate the insidious “summer learning loss” that particularly affects children in under-resourced communities. What made this announcement even more painful was the knowledge that many children from these communities were already experiencing an academic crisis caused by the hasty, but necessary implementation of online instruction and the broader economic and social distress caused by the pandemic. In fact, a recent study by the Brookings Institution reports that “these additional stressors suggest that the COVID-19 slump might have even more impact on children from under-resourced homes than the [typical] summer slump.” For these reasons (and many more), PBC is collaborating with two Summer Bridge partner organizations, Mercer Street Friends (MSF) and the Center for Child and Family Achievement (CCFA), to deliver an engaging blend of virtual STEAM, literacy, and social emotional learning programming to nearly fifty children throughout the month of July.

Students began the program developing a shared “Full Value Contract” that would govern interpersonal relationships in the virtual classroom space – the same way that we would help groups self-govern if they were physically present on Campus. Students then worked both alone and together to solve an array of STEAM and SEL challenges designed to foster critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and responsible decision-making, while strengthening their social awareness and building strong relationships with their facilitators, chaperones, and peers. Divided into small groups of fewer than ten students, each cohort was led by a trained PBC facilitator and adult chaperone from the partnering organization. This favorable “classroom” ratio enhanced personalized instruction and accountability, resulting in active student engagement during each two-hour synchronous learning session and additional hour of daily asynchronous programming.   

A screenshot of PBC Facilitator Makela reviewing the projects of students from CCFA during their Virtual Summer Bridge session.

During the program, participants contemplated scenarios such as being “lost at sea”, collaboratively prioritizing a list of life saving supplies to be loaded into their imaginary “lifeboat”. They designed and built boats using everyday household items and then developed a sales pitch to promote their model against the “competition.” They designed and played musical instruments built from found objects. They germinated and dissected seeds. They nurtured plant life for an indoor garden. They built and tested catapults, calculating the trajectories of objects launched (safely!) across their bedrooms. They made “Friendship Bracelets” and learned about indigenous American’s culture. They wrote poetry in several formats, including haiku. They dissected owl pellets, watched nature videos, and recorded their own insights in a nature journal. And perhaps most importantly, throughout the program students reflected on their progress and celebrated accomplishments. Our hope is that they also were reminded, discovered, or re-discovered that learning can be fun; working together trumps going it alone; and that there are people beyond the walls of their home who care about their well-being and success.

The feedback from our partner organizations has been uniformly positive. Wanda Webster Stansbury, Executive Director of CCFA remarked, “I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for an exceptional experience for all of the students who attended the Princeton-Blairstown virtual summer program. Today I enjoyed participating in sessions conducted by Makela, Handy and Tabs—you were all fantastic and the activities were fun and informative!”  Chelsea Jenkins, Program Manager for MSF, expressed her appreciation for the “original, creative, and engaging curriculum PBC developed for this virtual experience.” While all agree that nothing can truly replace a trip to PBC’s 264-acre outdoor classroom, our Trenton partners were grateful for the opportunity to work with our talented staff to provide meaningful programming that activated and challenged young minds and strengthened community bonds in these troubled times.

In designing and delivering the Virtual Summer Bridge program, the PBC staff lived the philosophy that guides our daily work with young people—growth occurs when we stretch beyond our comfort zone. While 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered for many things, our hope is that the students from CCFA and MSF will look back on this unusual summer and be inspired by PBC staff who put their own 21st Century skills to work to provide a fun and enriching experience. With the continued support of our generous donors, PBC remains committed to providing the very best in experiential and environmental programming—by any means necessary—until all can safely return to our beautiful campus in the woods.

SEL for the School Year, and Beyond

As children return to school after the long summer break that is customary in the United States, they will return to classrooms with the hope that the skills and knowledge gained during their previous year of academic instruction remain intact. Yet, all children lose some academic skills over summertime, and each student will vary in the amount of learning lost. In the absence of high-quality and accessible summer enrichment experiences, skill loss is likely to be greater. However, there are many ways to help all children transition back to school more readily, including employing social-emotional learning instruction. 

What is SEL?
Much more than a hashtag, Social Emotional Learning (SEL) includes five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. PBC’s experiential, environmental, and adventure-based programming is designed to help participants learn and grow in each of these areas through personal and team-based challenges and reflection. They experience nontraditional learning through activities on our high- and low-ropes courses and waterfront activities, which challenge students on their levels.

While ropes courses and an on-campus lake and stream are likely not available for the average classroom teacher, there are many exercises and activities that can be implemented easily and with few resources to help students develop the social emotional skills necessary for success in the classroom, and beyond.

Here is one suggestion that can be implemented with a wide age range, and with common school supplies.

Sample Lesson: Webbing Intro Wrap

Here’s a sample lesson you can use with your students at the start of new school year.

    Estimated Length: 15 minutes

    Number of Participants: Varies; Larger classes should be split into multiple groups so there are 10-15
    students per circle.

    Challenge Level: Beginner

Overview:
The purpose of this activity is for group members to get to know each other on a more personal basis.

Materials:
A piece of tubular webbing (or yarn/string) 15 to 20 inches in length.

Steps (Description of Activity):

Have your participants stand in a circle.

Role model for the group what is expected.

Do the following: Slowly wrap the piece of webbing around your hand while telling the group about yourself… hobbies, favorite foods, sisters, brothers, favorite place, where you are from, etc.

Going around the circle, have each student talk about themselves for the length of time it takes them to wrap the same section of material around their hand. (Tip: Smaller hands will take longer to wrap the same amount of string, so consider using a shorter length if working with younger children.)

Have each participant start by saying their name, and at least one fact about themselves, and then finish by saying their name again.

Once everyone has shared, ask if there is anyone who can go around the group and say everyone’s name. Try it yourself and applaud all efforts.

Suggested Processing Questions (3-5 for each Code)

• Communication:
  What helped you to learn and remember the person’s name?
  Why is it important to remember a person’s name when you first meet them?
  Have you ever had someone remember or forget your name? What was that like for you?

• Teambuilding:
  What is a team?
  Why is it important for members of a team to know each other’s name?
  Do you feel like you are starting to be a part of this team right now?

• Transference:
  When you are introduced or meet a person for the first time, what do you normally do?
  Why is it important to learn a person’s name?
  What does your name say about you?

• Anticipated Challenges (Safety, Physical, Emotional):
  Be aware that initially most group members will be sharing superficial info about themselves. As they gain trust in the group, members will share more detail as they feel comfortable. Remind the group that challenge by choice always applies because the number one goal is their safety, both physical and emotional.

Helpful Hints to get Started:
Point out to students that they have the choice to share as much or as little about themselves as they would like.  If a student is struggling, prompt them with an easy question, such as favorite food, dessert, or what meal they last ate.

Consider building this or other lessons into your classroom instruction to deepen trust and understanding between students, faculty, and staff, and to practice soft skills such as clear communication and cooperation.

More ideas and resources for leading SEL activities are available on our Resources page on the PBC website.

Best wishes to all teachers, students, and school staff for a safe, successful, and productive 2019-2020 school year!

Students Learn From People They Love

A recent New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks entitled, Students Learn From People They Love, talks about the social emotional learning (SEL) movement’s acceptance as an important and valid educational methodology.

“The good news is the social and emotional learning movement has been steadily gaining strength. This week the Aspen Institute (where I lead a program) published a national commission report called “From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope.” Social and emotional learning is not an add-on curriculum; one educator said at the report’s launch, “It’s the way we do school.” Some schools, for example, do no academic instruction the first week. To start, everybody just gets to know one another. Other schools replaced the cops at the door with security officers who could also serve as student coaches.”

The work that we do at the Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) around social-emotional learning is exactly what The Aspen Institute report says is at the heart of education. “The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a shifting educational fad; it is the substance of education itself. It is not a distraction from the “real work” of math and English instruction; it is how instruction can succeed.”

The reason so many independent and charter schools come to the Center every fall, year after year, is that our intentional programming helps faculty and students form positive, supportive relationships with each other.  These schools understand that their time at PBC forms the basis for teaching and learning for the school year.  By taking both teachers and students out of their comfort zones and going through a carefully sequenced set of exercises that build team and crucial 21st century skills like critical-thinking, communication, cooperation, and creativity, PBC helps schools build “climate and culture.” It’s the key to future learning that groups take back to the classroom. 

Schools that come to the Center understand how incorporating social and emotional learning enhances students’ education. According to the Aspen Institute’s report, “It is a mistake to view social and emotional learning as a “soft” approach to education. Quite the opposite. An emphasis on these capacities is not the sacrifice of rigor; it is a source of rigor. While many elements of a child’s life improve along with the cultivation of these skills, one of the main outcomes is better academic performance.”

One of the three core goals of PBC’s award-winning Summer Bridge Program is to build supportive relationships with students and the adults in their lives, recognizing that “students learn from the people they love.”  Our teachers and chaperones speak regularly about how important and impactful this is for them and their students. Follow this link to hear one of our Summer Bridge Program teachers from Wilson Elementary School speak about the benefits of building a relationship at PBC.