MADISON — Why do turtles come out of the water to lay eggs? What plants and animals live in Madison? How can you identify an animal by its tracks?

Those are among the questions that students at Madison Elementary School can explore with new outdoor learning facilities, recently built thanks to a federally funded state grant.

“Ultimately, it just gives kids a different perspective,” Principal Scott Mitchell said Tuesday during a tour of the outdoor classroom. “It’s the kids’ sense of wonder. We want them to ask questions.”

The new infrastructure includes an accessible trail behind the school’s playground, which leads down to a wetland area, and a dock-like structure providing easy access to observe the marsh. The trail also features several benches and areas for activities.

Madison teachers, Maine School Administrative District 59 administrators and about a dozen state and local officials celebrated the environmental learning center’s opening with a ribbon cutting Tuesday.

The project got a major boost from a state Department of Education grant program called Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures, Mitchell said. RREV, as the state project is known, awarded $100,000 to MSAD 59, according to Department of Education documents.

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Two Madison Elementary School teachers, Jennifer Swain and Cristina Sirois, led the effort to get the grant to build the environmental learning center, Mitchell said.

A new dock-like structure at the environmental learning center at Madison Elementary School in Madison provides a view of wetlands. The school marked the opening of the facility Tuesday. Jake Freudberg/Morning Sentinel

The RREV program, funded by nearly $17 million from the U.S. Department of Education awarded in 2020, has supported innovative pilot projects across the state, according to its website. Maine was one of 11 states to receive the federal dollars.

The program has funded 45 projects in 42 Maine school districts across all of Maine’s counties, said RREV Project Director Elaine Bartley.

“The whole goal of RREV was to create systemic change across the state by tapping into the awesomeness of Maine’s educators and school teams,” Bartley said Tuesday.

Outdoor learning has always been a goal for the Madison school since it opened in 2002, said state Rep. Jack Ducharme, a Republican who represents the town, along with Norridgewock and Cornville. Ducharme, who attended the ribbon cutting, said he was on the local school board at the time.

“When we acquired this property and built this school, this is the kind of thing that we expected,” Ducharme said. “We expected that it was going to be in a place where it was far enough away from the beaten path and had the woods and the rest of that stuff, so that there could be activities outdoors.”

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Mitchell, the principal, said the project is among several outdoor initiatives the school is working to develop.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “There’s more to come.”

So far, the environmental learning facility already appears to be a hit among students.

When Mitchell asked the school’s approximately 145 students, in pre-K through second grade, how many had already walked down the trail, he was met with a resounding chorus of yeses.

“Me!” they shouted back.

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