On an average day here at The Leelanau School, you’ll find Mr. Blondia and his students dressed in waders stepping into the Crystal River to fish or study the river’s slimy inhabitants. You’ll see Mr. Hood and his students sliding on beekeeper suits to collect some honey or Mrs. Hood mountain biking through the trails. In the winter, students learn about survival in the great outdoors and whirl down ski hills on the daily.

Nature experts like Richard Louv and psychologists like Dr. Carl Sherman agree that green time helps those with ADHD. In Louv’s monumental book, The Last Child in the Woods, he describes our children and teens today suffering from what he has coined, Nature Deficit Disorder. He claims that without the outside world, kids suffer. But with adequate time in nature, their anxieties and even ADHD symptoms can decrease. Because without walls to confine them, students can release their energy and focus on things like making sure their tires stay on the trail or finding the salmon in the river. Suddenly, they’re no longer focused on trying not to disrupt the class, but instead, experiencing their education. 

Sure, this sounds like an idyllic utopia. But it’s also research-based. As Dr. Sherman of ADDitude Magazine said, “Researchers found that the greater the exposure to nature, the greater the attentiveness.” Essentially, students with ADHD can suffer from attention fatigue. So, with time spent in green spaces, their ability to focus increases. In a study conducted at The University of Illinois and led by Dr. Richard Kuo, they found that “activities done in green environments, with lots of trees and grass around, lead to the biggest improvements in attention.”

Here, getting outside on the regular isn’t something that feels forced. It’s something our staff does daily and is woven into our schedules and syllabi. Not only is the setting along the shores of Lake Michigan and within the tall oaks picturesque, but we’re committed to getting our students immersed in this enchanted environment so that it helps them become whole. 

The students here learn through experiential education, but I’d like to think that the relationship they form with nature will forever leave an imprint on their hearts. Not only will they remember how the bees help with living a sustainable life, but they’ll remember how it felt to be a part of a community that cared. 

For the ADHD student, more focus can happen here at The Leelanau School because time is spent in the vastness of the outside world. Students come into physical contact with the earth, their earth, daily–leaving them with not only a greater sense of the world, but themselves.