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  • Empowering

    Early Childhood

    Join us in creating a community of early childhood advocates dedicated to enriching young lives through outdoor learning experiences.

  • Growing Futures

    Cultivating Nature

    Discover how Maine is ensuring that every young child has access to the wonders of the outdoors, supported by a dedicated community of early childhood champions committed to fostering unforgettable learning experiences.

Maine will ensure the right of every young child to access nature through a community of early childhood stakeholders supported and prepared to provide outdoor learning experiences for children and families.

Outdoor experience for all

“If the research is correct, nature connection is more than a nice pursuit, a pastime, or a privilege. It is a necessity. In the words of David Orr, a leader in environmental education and green urban design, the human connection to a healthy natural environment is the ultimate human right, upon which all other rights depend.” – Richard Louv

Access to the benefits of nature-based learning should be available to all. Currently, this is not the case and the “nature gap” often falls on racial and socioeconomic lines. MaineECO prioritizes work that addresses the nature gap in Maine.
Know Who We Are

Our Mission

We are an inclusive statewide network made up of early childhood stakeholders: early childhood professionals from early care and education programs, elementary schools, community partners, higher education, and state offices and policymakers, as well as philanthropy and families with young children.

We connect the Maine early childhood community to each other with resources to support outdoor and nature-based learning experiences that prioritize the full scope of children’s development.

We collaborate to dismantle systemic barriers and amplify diverse voices to ensure all young children in Maine can learn, play, and grow outdoors and in connection with nature.

We inspire people to connect children to the outdoor environment in order to love, serve, and protect the earth.

What is Early Childhood Outdoor Nature-Based Learning?

Nature-based learning (NBL) is an educational approach that engages children with the natural environment and natural elements as a pathway for learning. Although NBL often occurs in natural settings, it can also occur in built environments where natural elements are added to promote learning and skill development.

In practice, nature-based education includes ;
extensive time outdoors each day in all types of weather, integration of outdoor experiences in children’s learning both indoors and outdoors, authentic, local nature represented in the curriculum, a natural outdoor play area rich with materials children can use in many ways for meaningful play and exploration and time spent in natural areas beyond the boundaries of the fenced play area .

What we stand for

Purpose & Values

Our work is grounded in equity and belonging, sharing power and leadership to shape and evolve a flexible and responsive network.

– The rights of young children to access the outdoors and to learn and play in connection with nature

– The health and wellbeing of current and future generations

– Learning from history and ancestors

– Research, content expertise, and lived experience

– Inquiry and innovation

– Collaboration and collective action

Who is using outdoor nature-based Pedagogy?

A variety of program types can offer a nature-based approach to early education, and may be called nature preschools, place-based schools, nature kindergartens, or forest kindergartens. The programs may be located in nature centers, in homes, in community centers, in parks, on farms, in public schools, or in a variety of other settings. Regardless of the setting, nature-based educations share key characteristics including: dual goals of promoting child development and environmental literacy, using nature as the central learning theme, spending a significant portion of the instructional time outdoors, employing a child-led play-based approach driven by children's interest, and recognizing the benefits of children's healthy appropriate risk taking. – Natural Start Alliance

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Network Participants

“If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.” - Robert Kiyosaki

MeECO is a statewide network and relies on many partners for its success. There are many meaningful and important participants in our state, all doing their part to enhance outdoor education for young children.

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