Project NEST
Mountains to the east, mountains to the west: it’s not hard to imagine Rockbridge County rather like a nest – the place we raise our young.
Nurturing Environmental Stewardship Together (NEST) is also the name of Boxerwood's award-winning partnership with all 12 local public schools and 17 preschools. It’s how our community ensures all children have an opportunity to grow up caring for the place we call home.
Developed over two decades, this sequential, multi-grade curriculum now engages over 2,500 youth in outdoor learning each year. Led by Boxerwood instructors in tandem with classroom teachers, these half-day to full-day experiences take place at Boxerwood, in schoolyards, and along creeks and rivers. The goal is to raise an entire generation of young people who have the knowledge, skills, and motivations to be active stewards of the Earth.
Curricular Sequence
Pre-K: "I Trust"
Boxerwood’s preschool program helps 400 young children a year develop the trust and wonder essential for well-being. Arising from an early, transformative gift from the Dale E. Waller family, this robust program features a three-year series of seasonally-rotating themes. With stories, puppets, and plenty of imagination, educators help children bond with the natural world, our home.
In autumn, for example, the children might traipse through the garden with Chatter the Squirrel, discovering amidst the oaks, acorns, and insects the marvel that everything is connected. Come winter, Boxerwood educators will build on these relationships by visiting the children in their preschools, sharing new stories and schoolyard adventures. Springtime returns the preschoolers to Boxerwood, eager to smell the peonies, touch the earth, taste the honey, skip and play.
K-Grade 2: "I Can"
NEST programs in the early years help children make connections between the natural world and what they are learning in the classroom. With help from Boxerwood educators, children strengthen their senses and the powers of observation while investigating seasonal change. Each autumn, first graders investigate the many ways plants disperse seeds. Second graders, meanwhile, explore animal strategies and adaptations.
The children continue to build their competencies during the spring. Kindergarteners track Boxerwood waterways and create maps. First graders learn how to use compasses to solve a woodland mystery. Second graders gather and graph their first data about frogs and flowers. As part of Project NEST, children return to Boxerwood again and again, each time deepening their knowledge and skills.
Grades 3-5: "I Know"
Action learning is a big part of Project NEST, and by upper elementary school 700 kids a year are learning how ecosystems work and what we can do to protect them. In a series of field-based programs, the 8-10 year olds learn how to think like scientists as they plan and carry out data-rich investigations about birds, bugs, and more.
As part of these Boxerwood visits, students also learn how to recycle, compost, and prevent soil erosion. With help from our educators, they then put these stewardship actions into practice back at school. By the 4th and 5th grade, these emerging Earth stewards step up their responsibilities again. They start monitoring the health of streams and filling the Boxerwood nurseries with hundreds of hand-planted seedlings, ready for more watershed actions to come.
Grades 6-8: "I Belong"
As middle schoolers meet a more complex world, Project NEST grows with them. Some youth seize the opportunity to join our annual 3-day trip to the Chesapeake Bay. Others forge new LDMS-MRMS friendships through our EarthKeepers Club.
Beyond these activities, though, there are also school-based projects that connect all middle schoolers to community issues and action. This year, Boxerwood educators are helping Maury River Middle School science teachers implement a local water monitoring project in which all 200 6th graders collect seasonal data from impaired Woods Creek then share their findings with stakeholders. 6th graders at Lylburn Downing Middle School also investigate this urban waterway, while peers in Buena Vista study the Maury River. At each school, student-led stewardship action is part of the plan – including planting those nursery trees the kids first nurtured as seedlings.
Grades 9-12: "I Am"
Boxerwood connects with teens in varied ways, reflecting the diverse pathways to young adulthood. During the school day, we typically partner with environmental science teachers, assisting with stream-based studies. This fall, we’re working with PMHS ecology students as they pursue a multi-week investigation: “How healthy is the Maury for fishing and swimming?” We also work with agriculture classes at RHCS, supporting a teacher’s interest in getting her students to investigate the relationship between best farming practices and water quality.
Beyond the classroom, Boxerwood frequently convenes Green Career Expos for both high schools; organizes a paid summer teen internship program through our BV Cool Trees project; and recruits and trains teens for the annual state Envirothon competition. By the time Rockbridge students leave the NEST, they’re ready to take flight.
Tending our NEST
Environmental Literacy Planning
In 2025, Boxerwood was awarded a 3-year competitive grant to more deeply embed NEST practices across two partner school divisions. The funding comes from the Chesapeake Bay Office of US NOAA/Bay Watershed Education Program (NOAA-BWET). The purpose is to create a living document that will map the goals, activities, and outcomes the divisions will pursue to advance environmental literacy among all students. As project lead, Boxerwood is facilitating and guiding this teacher-led initiative.
NEST Stories
Throughout our 25th year, we’re sharing stories of young people whose experiences with Project NEST shaped their passions and vocations. Explore our first three profiles below, or click here to read the entire series.
