Caribbean Earth Day program takes mindfulness learning outdoors for students

At Grace Bay beach, 26 students from Enid Capron Primary School stepped out with teachers and Beaches Turks and Caicos leaders, paused by the pine tree sculpture, and turned an Earth Day outing into a mindfulness lesson built around walking, observing and breathing. Sandals Foundation said the broader program reached more than 300 children across the Caribbean, linking environmental education to mental well-being instead of keeping it inside a classroom.

The April 28 program focused on students ages 9 to 11 and used a simple structure: breathing exercises, nature walks, sensory observation and discussion. The foundation said those sessions unfolded in national parks, mangrove forest, resort gardens at Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort and national conservation areas. That made the natural world the classroom, with children asked to notice what they heard, saw and felt while learning why attention matters.

The scope matched Sandals Foundation’s wider environmental playbook. The organization works across Jamaica, The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Curacao, Turks and Caicos and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and it says education, community development and environmental conservation have positively touched 1.5 million lives over 15 years. For Earth Day in 2023, it galvanized hundreds of ambassadors and guests across eight islands to plant more than 900 food-bearing trees in a single day. It has also said it is expanding a tree-planting commitment by another 10,000 trees to strengthen climate resilience and food security.

The Enid Capron visit also sat inside a longer local relationship. Beaches Turks and Caicos and Sandals Foundation previously installed a 750-gallon water filtration system at the primary school, valued at almost US$15,000 and described as a benefit for more than 500 students and teachers. The school has also received cleanup support, a facelift and donations, and later community assistance after a house fire. In that context, the Earth Day walk looked less like a one-off photo stop and more like a repeatable model for youth wellness: put children outdoors, give them a path to follow, and let environmental learning start with a slower breath.