Jennifer Lyn FlaumenhaftFollow

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Education Program

Advisor(s)

Lyn Mikel Brown

Second Advisor

Debra Sparks

Abstract

This project began with colored Post-It notes and a classroom of Colby College students with a mission to promote student voice in an under-resourced rural elementary school. Lyn Mikel Brown’s Youth-Fueled Activism class paired with Transforming Rural Experience in Education (TREE), an organization that transforms rural communities into hubs for opportunity and civic empowerment.1 TREE uses trauma-informed principles to improve the school experience for students at Seabrook and Portside Elementary Schools. Our class worked with TREE to engage in curricular reform that reimagines learning in a way that promotes student voice. Our class took Maine Common Core State Standards and created project-based, outdoor learning lesson plans that connect the classroom material to the community. We built the basis of a curriculum around microadventures: lessons based on students’ desire for more movement, time outdoors, and time together. This project also includes a podcast designed to tell the story of microadventures and make the theory and practices of microadventures accessible to schools, teachers, and parents. My Honors Thesis affirms and documents microadventures as student- empowered, trauma-informed outdoor learning. The goal of this thesis is to explore the idea that microadventures improve school climate, student experience, and student performance.

Keywords

Trauma-Informed, Outdoor Education, Rural Schools

Download

Share

COinS