Sharing Natural Reminders of Joy, Understanding, & Respect

Have you experienced The Pennfield Path yet?

5th grade students recently completed a sustainability research project to share with others who walk along the ALT Greenway Trail.

Part One: Thoughtful Observation

Pennfield’s Sustainability Educator, Mrs. Hallowell, and guest teacher, Patricia Bailey, encouraged students to observe and experience their surroundings by engaging their senses, their thoughts, and their imaginations during a silent walk along the ALT Trail. During the walk, students were challenged to reflect on the school’s mission, observing the JOY around them and gaining a deeper UNDERSTANDING of nature, realizing that RESPECT for all living things is imperative. They were each given small field journals to make notes and observations.

Part Two: Researching and Creating

Students were assigned the name of an environmentalist to research. Each student wrote a five paragraph letter of appreciation to the person they were assigned and chose one short quote from that person. Students added their essays and quotes into their field journals and shared their discoveries with their classmates in an oral presentation.

Part Three: Sharing with All

The selected quotes were burned onto wooden tree rounds, generously supplied by the Newport Tree Warden. Students placed the completed rounds along the Pennfield section of the ALT Greenway Trail.

In honor of Earth Day, Pennfield’s Sustainability students invite everyone to wander The Pennfield Path and find inspiration in their words.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle, which we don’t even recognize:

A blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes.

All is a miracle. – Thich Nhat Hanh