Sugaring Maple Trees as Progressive Education: From the Creek to the Classroom
“This tastes watery,” said one child after they tasted the sap flowing from a maple tree on Miquon’s campus. “It’s a little sweet,” said another. “I don’t taste anything!” offered a third.
Observations like these, calling on children to immerse themselves in an experience with shared curiosity, inquiry, and wonder, are at the heart of one of Miquon’s treasured traditions: tapping the campus maple trees to transform sap to syrup.
Recently Miquon’s Kindergarten and First Grade classes completed their maple tapping project, a beloved part of the curriculum for 27 years. This project weaves together a complete Progressive education learning journey for children, starting with the research stage where they read books together and shared their ideas and questions about the tapping process, followed by a deep dive into direct experience.
The children were so excited to test their knowledge as they hiked across campus to the maple trees on a sunny morning in late February, helped to drill the holes into one Sugar Maple and one Silver Maple, and set up the taps and buckets.
As they checked on the buckets over the next several days, tasting, pouring, and working together to transport heavy jars back to their classrooms, observations flowed. The children realized that on some days there was more collected sap than others, and they began to question why. Some children thought the trees might be running out. Others observed that the two types of trees produced slightly different types of sap. More realized, upon further research, that the flow of sap was connected to changes in temperature.
Questions lead to research, which lead to more questions. For our young children, here are the building blocks of how to engage in scientific work that feels directly meaningful, engaging, and fun.
After the children hauled the sap back to their classrooms, then began the sugaring process (the process of boiling maple tree sap and transforming it into syrup).
Here are a few of the questions asked and the observations made while the sap was boiling:
- Did it evaporate so it’s not watery?
- It smells like maple syrup. How did the tree make it?
- Why does it have those white bubbles?
- I see the temperature is very hot
- It’s turning a different color – caramelish brown
- It went down because it was boiling too long
- Now I know we won’t add sugar – it’s already in the sap!
After two weeks it was finally time to take out the taps. In the meantime, the classes worked together to document each step of the process. They brainstormed, photographed, journaled, and drew, creating how-to books about maple tapping at Miquon.
What a journey! Truly, a job well done to our Kindergarten and First Grade classes.
Projects like Miquon’s maple tapping project tie children so directly into the realm of real-world work and deeply enriching experience. It’s this focus on experience that illustrates Miquon’s core conviction that children learn best when allowed to explore, do, create, and play, and that we connect back to one of progressive education’s most influential voices, John Dewey.
Learning is most powerful when children are respected and active participants, when the process is steeped in question-making, problem-solving, and the joy of discovery.
In the end, tapping the maple trees resulted in three totally different batches of syrup: a pale, yellowish, clear batch, a dark, maple sugar crystal filled batch, and a smooth, medium brown batch.
Are you curious to learn more? Ask to see their books the next time you’re on campus!
