NEW GLOUCESTER – The historic Shaker Village on Friday transformed into an indoor/outdoor classroom of educational learning for 150 third-grade students from SAD 15.

Yellow school buses rolled in and out of the village ferrying students and teachers throughout the day.

The green pastures, apple orchard and grazing animals formed a pastoral backdrop to rows of pristine white and brick historic buildings and barns preserved as a National Historic Landmark.

The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village has served as home to the United Society of Shakers since the late 1700s. Today three members live at the village.

On Friday, high school students became tour guides for the third-graders, leading them from building to building, talking about the way the Shaker legacy is preserved today at the Shaker Museum.

Gray-New Gloucester High School teacher Robert Boggs said the school offers a competitive Shaker studies course, and this year 14 seniors were selected to study all aspects of Shaker life and the village.

High school senior Tyler Blanchard of Gray shepherded 10 students Friday, reminding them, “No touching and be really respectful for what’s inside.”

In the 1784 meeting house, he guided the boys to their pew while the girls sat across from them.

“During the worship service, there were no leaders. This is a community and everyone had a chance to talk.” Blanchard explained that the blue paint was made at the village from blueberries, milk and lead.

“Though the Shakers believe in community, they (sexes) go their separate ways,” Blanchard explained, showing the door designated for girls and the one for boys.

Blanchard, who will attend the College of William & Mary in Virginia in the fall, says he remembers his third-grade tour at the village. He had two older sisters who were enrolled in the Shaker studies. Students toured the herb house, the Sisters’ Shop where fancy baskets were fabricated from poplar splints, and a permanent press fabric machine stands with a treadle sewing machine invented by the Shakers 200 years ago.

Simple efficiency abounds, with dressers built into walls to conserve space.

Students learned about the successful Shaker candy business under Sister Mildred Barker, who was the village eldress until she died in the late 1980s.

Preserved ginger, homemade jelly, coconut cream, and peanut butter fudge were sold with pickles, along with ginger beer, root beer and birch beer.

Students learned that the flat broom and the Lazy Susan – a rotating tray placed on tables to help move food on a large countertop – were invented by the Shakers.

And the Shakers made their own soap using spent ash. Corn husks were used to make mattresses for beds, baskets were woven, furniture made, and wooden boxes were a specialty.

The Shaker studies program is a partnership between SAD 15 and the Shaker Village, and is rooted to the inspirational outreach of Brother Theodore Johnson who contacted the high school in 1981, says Boggs, who teaches the Shaker studies program at the high school.

As a fledgling teacher 26 years ago, Boggs said he took responsibility for the program and in recent years has seen former third-graders who toured the village now serving as tour guides over and over again. “Probably 90 percent of the Shaker studies students took this same tour in the third grade,” he says.

Student Olivia Ryan of Gray said her class went to Dunn Elementary School where the younger students learned about the Shakers through games, foods, beliefs and guiding principles.

Third-grader Clara Philips said her favorite part of the tour was seeing the animals, such as sheep and Scottish Highland cattle.

Friday’s event also marked the official opening of the public season at the Shaker Village, said Shaker Museum Director Leonard Brooks.