Maine Solutionaries: How Maine Educators are Learning to Support the Leaders of Tomorrow

(Delaney Rideout, a high school science teacher from Mattanawcook Academy, participates in the Solutionaries' iceberg problem-solving exercise.)

More than 40 Maine educators came together recently for the first of four Maine Solutionaries project kick-offs. Guided by the Institute for Humane Education, these educators learned how to use the curriculum to empower students to solve the real-life problems they care about in their schools and communities.

"The Maine Solutionaries Project is a really exciting opportunity for Maine teachers to engage in professional learning. It's cohort-based, so we are bringing teachers from all over the state together into groups who are focusing on topics such as plastics, food waste, or climate change," said Julie Meltzer, the Director of K-12 and Teacher Education for the Institute for Human Education.

The Maine Solutionaries Project is an exciting new addition to Maine's educational toolkit, developed through a collaboration with the Maine Department of Education (DOE) Interdisciplinary Instruction Team and the Institute of Humane Education. Together, the Institute and Maine DOE seek to inspire and support educators to cultivate a generation of Solutionary change-makers capable of effectively addressing and resolving real-world problems, honing their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

When asked the essential question, "What is a Solutionary?" Meltzer explained,"A Solutionary is a next-level problem-solver change-maker who looks at systems and looks at things in their community or in their school that they want to change for the better and considers all the stakeholders, analyzes why it's happening, and then comes up with ideas to address the problem, while thinking about what's good for people, animals and the environment."

The Solutionary Framework consists of four phases: Identify, Investigate, Innovate, and Implement.

"Maine teachers have seen improved student engagement and deeper learning when they implemented Solutionary inquiry to action projects with their students" reports Meltzer.

Nell Herrmann, an Enrichment Educator at Blue Hill Consolidated School, comes from a field science background but transitioned to education in the early 2000s. After many years of feeling like her students' personal harbinger of environmental doom, Herrmann wanted to provide students with an opportunity to make some actionable changes in her classroom.

"I started to feel sort of a sense of despair that I was giving these kids all this bad news, and so I reached out to the president of the Institute for Humane Education, and she suggested that I try learning about the Solutionary framework and using it with my students," Herrmann recounted. "I did and I found that it was very empowering. And it took what I was teaching the kids a step further and gave them the ability to see that they have the power to make a change."

The four phases of the Solutionairie Framework .

Herrmann's first Solutionary course was a huge hit with her students and an excellent example of the Solutionary framework in action. Speaking at the Maine Solutionaries Project Kick-Off session, Herrmann shared the story of her first Solutionary project: "My students and I were investigating some environmental threats to the Bagaduce Watershed, our local watershed, and one of the threats they identified were invasive green crabs. And so they were collecting data, which they were inputting into the Gulf of Maine Marine Research Institute webpage and database, but then decided that they didn't want to put the crabs back into the ecosystem because they're so destructive to the ecosystem. So, they decided as a solution that they would collect the data as they've been doing, but then keep the crabs and test out some different recipes and host a green crab cafe with some of those recipes."

Herrmann was asked not only to speak at the Maine Solutionaries Project kick-off but also to be a Solutionary coach for one of the project's first cohorts. At the kick-off, along with meeting and learning from speakers like Herrmann, these first cohort educators got to know each other through icebreakers, took part in mock Solutionary lessons, and prepared for the next chapter of their Solutionary journey. Speaking with educators after the kick-off, it was clear that the first cohort of the Maine Solutionaries Project can't wait to bring the framework into their classroom.

"I am really excited about having a bigger community to connect with to work on problems that empower our students to figure out solutions so that they can be taking action instead of feeling like they're only on the receiving end," said Heather Martin, the librarian at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School.

From further north in Lincoln, Delany Rideout plans to roll out the Solutionary framework to her Mattanawcook Academy High School science students.

Heather Martin, a librarian from Harriet Beacher Stowe, helps her fellow first-cohort educators set up the virtual learning portals where they will build their 2023-2024 Soultionaries classes.

"I think it's good for teachers in rural Maine to bring solutions to their schools because we are giving students skills to take action," she said."That's really important for them and empowering them to know that they can make changes in their community even though they might not have as many resources as other bigger places."

The first two cohorts of the Maine Solutionaries project are well on their way. They are completing Solutionary prep work, participating in class meetings online, and beginning to design the projects they will do with students during the 2024-20254 school year.

Bring the Maine Solutionairies Project to your school! Visit The Maine Solutionaries Website to apply for the next six cohorts. The final deadline for applications is July 31.

Apply to Join the Maine Solutionairies Project

The Maine Solutionaries Project is a part of Maine's whole student Pandemic Response and was funded through Federal Emergency Relief Funding. The project has an award totaling $719,500, of which 100% is federally funded and directly attributed to project implementation. The contents are those of the Maine Solutionaries Project and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by the US Department of Education or the U.S. Government. Learn more about how Maine used Emergency Relief funding at Maine's Whole Student Pandemic Response page!

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