RSU 14 Students Create, Explore, and Learn at Maine Outdoor Learning Pavilion

Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, students from the Katahdin Program at RSU 14 (Windham Raymond School District) accessed the Maine Department of Education’s (DOE) Outdoor Learning Pavilion on Mackworth Island numerous times. While at the pavilion, these students worked on three different projects: building planter boxes for their hoop house at the Windham Community Garden; building picnic tables for several community partners; and building a 16-foot rowing dory in partnership with Sailing Ships Maine, to be used by students in the Katahdin Program.

“This space provided by the Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative has been a great asset to students in the Katahdin Program,” Katahdin Head of School Rich Meserve said. “We used the indoor space on cold winter days and the outdoor pavilion when the spring weather arrived.”

Katahdin Program students building planter boxes

The Katahdin Program provides alternative education programming for students in
grades 9-12 who are enrolled in the RSU 14 school district. Community-based learning is a key
element of the Katahdin experience.

The Katahdin Program’s outdoor projects at the Maine Outdoor Learning Pavilion exemplify how students can practice civic engagement as part of their regular curriculum and also gain practical, real-world skills for life after high school.

“The Katahdin Program utilizes the outdoors as much as possible to tie in the
experiential and adventure-based programming that we provide to our students, while also connecting these projects to our classroom curriculum,” Katahdin special education teacher Paul Field said.

Dominic Siragusa, a junior at Windham High School who is enrolled in the Katahdin Program, noted, “The experience at the pavilion on Mackworth Island was great because doing hands-on projects really works for me.”

Katahdin Program students sanding the rowing dory

Throughout the winter, Katahdin Program students used the Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative’s indoor space on Mackworth Island several days a week to begin the construction of their 16-foot rowing dory. This spring, they completed the sanding and finishing work of the dory outside under the pavilion.

“The process of building the dory was great for our students, and the space worked perfectly. Our students are excited to row in Casco Bay in a boat they built themselves from start to finish,” Field said.

In mid-June,  staff and students from the Katahdin Program launched the dory. They will be able to use and maintain the boat for many years to come.

“It was really great for our students to be able to work on this project from the early planning stages all the way through to launching it,” Field expressed.

For more information about the RSU 14 Katahdin Program, please contact Rich Meserve at rmeserve@rsu14.org.

The Mackworth Island Outdoor Learning Pavilion is part of the Maine DOE’s Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative. The Initiative is delivered on a promise made by Governor Janet Mills during her 2022 State of the State address to provide children with more opportunities to learn about and explore Maine’s natural beauty and resources. 

For more information about the Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative, please contact Jonathan Ross at Jonathan.j.ross@maine.gov.