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Lugging heavy buckets of water a physical challenge, but ideal learning experience, for 2nd Nature Academy students

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Reporter | Apr 25, 2021

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Third-grader Summer Kasmia gets help from two fellow 2nd Nature Academy students in filling the buckets of water that she then carried to the school's barn during the school's annual Water Walk on Thursday. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)

NASHUA – At first it was pretty easy, even fun, for the students who took part in Thursday’s annual “Water Walk” project at 2nd Nature Academy, the private elementary, middle and high school tucked in the corner of Nashua’s Southwest quadrant.

But when the empty buckets the students had been given were each filled almost to the top with water, what started out as a brisk little jaunt across the school campus suddenly became an arduous, exhausting undertaking that demanded frequent pauses to warm up wind-bitten fingers and stretch out cramping muscles.

The sudden, and in many cases unexpected, burden thrust upon the 2nd Nature Academy students of all grades was the whole point of the exercise, which began with the distribution of theme T-shirts and the assignment of one, or two, buckets, depending on kids’ size and age, and soon became an ideal example of the academy’s mission they call “project-based learning.”

2nd Nature has included the so-called “Water Walk” in its curriculum for several years now, and this year the school was able to schedule it to coincide with Earth Day.

Deborah Gleeson, who in the late 1990s founded 2nd Nature with her husband, Denis, as a small preschool called “The Nature of Things,” said the Water Walk is among a series of service learning projects in which students in all grades participate each month during the school year.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP A group of 2nd Nature Academy students head out to fill their buckets with water during the school's annual "Water Walk" on Thursday. The walk brings to students' attention the hardships faced by people in other parts of the world, many of whom must walk long distances to find clean water. The walk benefits the Nashua-based Thank You Project, founded by a Nashua couple whose native Nigerian village is among those whose residents struggle to find fresh water. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)

The trek begins at the school’s main building, crosses a parking lot, follows a gravel road then a path that brings the walkers to the campus gardens, where they fill their buckets with hoses connected to a water pump.

The walkers then regroup and set out for the school’s barn, which sits atop a gradual incline that must be conquered in order to reach their destination.

Since typical faucets supply all the water the school needs, the water the students toted to the barn fills the water troughs from which the various animals drink.

2nd Nature partners for the Water Walk with the “Thank you Project,” a Nashua-based nonprofit founded in 2014 by Charles Okorie and his wife, who came to the U.S. from their native Nigeria in 1999.

The Thank You Project’s mission, Okorie said, “is a simple one: Change the lives of people by providing rural areas with drinking water, education and enlightenment.”

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP A group of 2nd Nature Academy students, wearing "Thank You Project" t-shirts donated by project founder Charles Okorie, head out with buckets to find water to bring to the school's barn for the animals. The school held its annual Water Walk on Thursday, to coincide with Earth Day. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)

Projects undertaken in Nigeria’s Ututu and Achi communities, Okorie said, include the drilling of boreholes, a step toward the goal of bringing fresh water to poor Nigerian villages whose residents have needed to participate, sometimes daily, in “real water walks” in search of water for them and their families.

Under the 2nd Nature Academy model, the students study and discuss a chosen social justice subject in the classroom, then apply what they’ve learned to a hands-on project, according to Gleeson.

Hence the “learning” part of the phrase “service project,” in which students “use a lot of literature to study” the subject then “actively do something that has to do with social justice,” she said.

That format, Gleeson added, makes an impact on the students as they advance from grade to grade.

“The older kids, they start asking when we’re going to do it,” Gleeson said of the Water Walk.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP 2nd Nature Academy fourth graders Ella Nazzaro, left, and Braela Quinn-Stearns make their way up a hill while toting buckets of water to the school's barn. The two were among dozens of students who took part in Thursday's Water Walk. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP As one of 2nd Nature Academy's alpacas waits to take a drink, fourth grader Ali Kasmia gets a hand from academy founder Debbie Gleeson to pour the water Ali carried to the barn into one of the watering troughs. The animals all got fresh water, thanks to the Water Walk project the students took part in Thursday. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)