Returning to the Island

Guest post: Bailey Moritz, Research Assistant

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My first dinner did not disappoint!

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Yurt platforms stand at the ready

Oh how I missed foggy mornings. I am so excited to be out on Hurricane again for another season of research, wonderful people, and learning! Even though this was my first weekend on the job after finishing school, the island has been in full gear for a while. I rode the boat out with a group from the Maine Island Trail Association coming to break new trail towards Sand Beach and we arrived to witness the final day of two middle school programs. There are a lot of awesome new staff members and educators; already I’ve overheard conversations about “art as critical inquiry” and making natural dyes from lichen. We’ve unloaded applewood for the well-utilized pizza oven and eaten local oysters and fiddleheads thanks to our talented Chef Eric. Yurts are in the process of being built to house the growing number of participants that will be out on the island this summer. Upon hiking to the High Cliffs to take in that priceless view, I noted the blueberries already beginning to peek out.

As the island quieted down for the day, the staff took an afternoon to boat over to neighboring Greens Island and explore the granite ledges, keeping a keen eye and ear out for nesting eagles. Already, I got to check an activity off my Hurricane Island bucket list. There’s never a lack of things to do out here! While the cabin is just as I left it and the red and black flags still wave in welcome, there is no doubting the energy of exciting changes pulsing throughout the island. Stay tuned for some great updates this summer. Cheers to being back out on Hurricane and cheers to what is shaping up to be an awesome season!

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Climbing around the edges of Greens Island

Organization of Biological Field Stations Meeting

Meeting participants take time to explore the North Pole Basin with Ian Bicknell, RMBL Director

At the end of September, I was fortunate enough to spend a week at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Gothic, CO, attending the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) Annual Meeting. OBFS is a network that supports over 300 field stations around the world with the mission “to help member stations increase their effectiveness in supporting critical research, education, and outreach programs. We pursue this goal in a manner that maximizes diversity, inclusiveness, sustainability, and transparency.” Individuals are able to trouble shoot and problem solve by accessing the wealth of knowledge contained in this network and the annual meeting provides the opportunity for face-to-face interactions, which leads to collaborations and partnerships. I traveled to the meeting with Laura Sewall, Director of the Bates Morse Mountain Conservation Area and Coastal Center at Shortridge, and my co-PI on the NSF Field Station and Marine Laboratory planning grant. We used the meeting as a venue to gather ideas and make connections to further formalize the network of Gulf of Maine field stations, marine labs, and larger research institutions.

I attended a session on how to develop programs with community colleges to increase field science opportunities to those who may not otherwise have access - Hurricane would be a great venue! Other sessions offered ideas on fundraising events and efforts to supplement operating revenue to keep a field station financially viable over time and establishing and maintaining long-term monitoring projects with the aim of providing services to surrounding communities and the broader scientific community.

Miles O’Brien, a freelance journalist and science correspondent for the PBS News Hour, and Mark Ruffalo, an actor and environmental activist who started Water Defense, connected to the meeting through Skype to speak to the entire group. They spoke about their experiences communicating science to the public and the dire need for increasing science literacy. They emphasized the importance of field stations as providing access to nature and in understanding our world through the scientific process.  

Overall, it was an incredible week in a beautiful place and I am reenergized to continue the work to create field science opportunities for middle and high school students through career scientists on Hurricane Island.

2015 Summer Interns

We are excited to have finalized the team for our summer season on Hurricane Island! Our summer interns will arrive in late June and help with the delivery of our middle and high school summer programs. They are an integral part of our community and we are looking forward to having them on the island. Stay tuned for updates from our interns about programs on the island, research, and more!

Jacqueline Rosa - Science & Experiential Education Intern

Originally from Connecticut, Jacque earned her degree in Marine Science from the University of Maine. During her time at UMaine, she spent a summer working at the Darling Marine Center (DMC) while completing her capstone research on the American lobster. Jacque then participated in the DMC's Semester by the Sea program. After graduating, she moved to California to work as a Marine Science Instructor at Catalina Island Marine Institute. She is passionate about helping kids gain environmental awareness and is excited to be back on the beautiful coast of Maine (and finally eat lobster again!).  

Olivia Lukacic - Science Education Intern

Olivia was born and raised in Massachusetts, but has now fallen in love with Vermont while attending the University of Vermont for the past three years. Studying environmental science and forestry has allowed her to critically look at the space around her with greater understanding. Although she spends classroom time daydreaming about being outside, she hopes to work to combine education and the environment to inspire the younger generation of scientists! While at school she spends many of her mornings on the Lamoille River watching the sunrise as a member of the women's rowing team. Waking up in the dark is tricky, but she would not trade the unique perspective on the river for anything. When Olivia is not rowing, she loves hiking, climbing, exploring, as well as reading and cooking! During winter, which is in her top two favorite seasons, she loves cross country skiing, snowshoeing, sledding and making paper snowflakes. Her love for the outdoors began while growing up on conservation land and she continues to be curious about everything that goes on around her, and particularly loves swapping knowledge about the natural world with others. Olivia's family spent many summers camping on the coast of Maine and she cannot wait to live on the Island this summer!  

Bailey Moritz - Scallop Research Intern

Though a proud Seattleite at heart, Bailey is currently a junior studying Earth & Oceanographic Science and Environmental Studies at Bowdoin College in Maine. Last summer she was on campus researching ocean acidification in a clam flat and getting covered in mud. In hopes of improving her Spanish skills, she went abroad on an ecology and marine conservation program in Panama, living with home stay families, researching Caribbean spiny lobster, and eating lots of plantains. Interested in the interaction of society and marine resources, she hopes to pursue fisheries science in the future. After becoming a leader for the Bowdoin Outing Club, she tries to spend most weekends exploring some corner of Maine by foot, canoe, or white water raft. Scuba diving has been her favorite activity since high school and inspired an awe and passion for the underwater world, which she loves to learn more about and share with others. Whenever she has free time, she plays percussion in a Middle Eastern Ensemble and can't pass up a good round of board games. 

Silas Rogers - Sustainability Intern

Silas grew up in the foothills of western Maine, but finds himself at home on Maine’s coast, and on the water. He is currently enrolled at The Apprenticeshop, a school for traditional boatbuilding in Rockland, Maine, for a two-year apprenticeship. There, he is honing his skills as a woodworker, building and restoring wooden boats. 

Silas enjoys activities such as biking, skiing, rowing, and sailing. Another of his favorite pastimes is playing music. He has been part of many music groups over the years, playing a mixture of instruments including fiddle and guitar, and hopes to bring music to the island this summer.

Excited to be a part of the Hurricane Island family, Silas is full of enthusiasm and energy, guided toward understanding and improving the island systems. He is always ready to take on a challenge, especially if it is hands-on. 

Campus Visit: University of Vermont

Alice and I visited the University of Vermont (UVM) campus in Burlington, Vermont on November 13 and 14, 2014 to meet with faculty and brainstorm future collaborations with the University. This trip was a great follow up from working with UVM senior Chloe Tremper last summer as part of an internship program with the University. Luckily, UVM is situated just up the road from Lake Champlain, so we didn't feel too land-locked during our stay! (Not to mention Burlington has some amazing restaurants and coffee shops).

While on campus, we checked out some of the ways UVM is communicating their sustainable design initiatives. One of these is through this awesome building dashboard, which, paired with a series of sensors in their buildings, tracks electricity and natural gas use of their LEED certified buildings.

We had a jam-packed visit, and were excited to come away with a number of good connections and potential opportunities to work with UVM. Some of these include continuing to host Perennial Interns from the Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources, support course trips out to Hurricane Island for a applied field science opportunity, and offer undergraduate and graduate students on-island research experiences during the summer.

Many of UVM's classes are designed to have a service-learning component, which means that student groups pair up and work with community partners on an identified need from the partner organization. Going forward, we could potentially send data collected on Hurricane to a statistics course where the students would learn statistical analysis techniques by working with our data during their semester. This would provide an opportunity to extend our island classroom well beyond Hurricane, which is exciting, and also help us organize and synthesize our datasets. All in all, our visit was well worth the trip and we are looking forward to working with UVM in the future and getting more students out to Hurricane!

Eastern Maine Skippers kickoff green crab project

Students gather on the high cliffs

On September 28th and 29th, forty-one students from six Maine coastal and island high schools (Deer Isle-Stonington, George Stevens Academy, Vinalhaven, North Haven, Narraguagus, and Mount Desert Island) gathered on Hurricane Island in Penobscot Bay to kickoff the second year of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program (EMSP) and their collaborative, year-long project addressing the question, “How can the impact of the green crab population be controlled in a way that conserves the marine ecosystem and encourages new industry?” The day and a half program was organized and hosted by Hurricane Island with additional staff support from Penobscot East Resource Center (PERC) and the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). The event introduced students to the green crab issue in Maine and was jam-packed with hands-on activities from learning about field sampling techniques to developing a marketable product made from green crabs to discussing elements underlying effective group work and communication. 

Skippers collecting data in the field.

This event provided students with an opportunity to connect in-person, fostering a generation of fishermen who know how to collaborate and communicate with each other despite being from different homeports. Before beginning fieldwork, students worked with Alice, HIF Science Educator, Noah Oppenheim, a graduate student at the University of Maine, School of Marine Sciences, Carla Guenther, Senior Scientist at PERC and Les White from the Maine DMR to identify different sampling techniques that could be used in assessing green crab abundance in the intertidal zone. After much deliberation and discussion, each group of students generated a scientific question about green crabs and identified an appropriate sampling method to test their question during low tide on Monday morning. After collecting data in the intertidal zone, students reflected on the process and discussed the pros and cons of their approach, analyzed data collected, and presented their findings to the larger group.

"I liked that we could go in the field and gather data for a project we designed instead of using somebody else's data from a textbook.  Doing hands-on learning makes you want to do the work more," said Elliott Nevells, a 9th grade student at Deer Isle-Stonington High School and EMSP participant.

Cooking with green crabs

On Sunday afternoon, students worked with peers from other schools to create an edible dish from green crabs. This activity provided students the opportunity to explore the potential for developing marketable products made from green crabs. Prior to the taste-testing contest, each group delivered a pitch describing their product, how it was made, who they were marketing it to, and the asking price. A panel of judges, made up of teachers, voted on their favorite dish.  The Hurricane Island Chowder dish won “Best Taste”, while the Green Crab Mac & Cheese dish won “Best Pitch,” and the Fried Green Crab & Dip was awarded “Most Creative Dish.”

"Events like this that bring students and future fishermen together from six coastal high schools are a great way to leverage the traditional knowledge and expertise that exists in our fishing communities in a way that will help our students learn the skills needed for any option they choose after high school- both college and career,” said Todd West, the Deer Isle-Stonington High School Principal. West has been leading the formation of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program, working with teachers and community partners to create the year-long curriculum for this network of schools and students.

Throughout the remainder of the school year, students will continue their investigation of green crabs in their own schools.  The green crab project will provide students the opportunity to learn and practice important skills such as active citizenship, public speaking, interpreting and using data, and applied science and engineering that will prepare them for modern fishing careers as well as post-secondary education. The project has further application beyond their high school education, however, as students are conducting real-world research that researchers and regulators can use as they seek to sustain fisheries as a viable component of our coastal economy, which is critical to Downeast communities.

We are grateful for the generous contribution from our bank, The First, for supporting Maine students and helping make this program possible.

Colby College's Environmental Studies Seminar

Shey Conover, Island Institute VP of Operations pointing out the island communities of Casco Bay.

On September 25th, 2014, 15 Colby College seniors and their professor, Philip Nyhus, arrived at our Rockland office eager to learn about Maine islands. They are in the midst of a semester-long group project to fulfill a requirement for their Environmental Studies Senior Seminar. One of the five groups is tackling issues within the theme "the state of Maine islands" and this trip was an opportunity for the students to hear first-hand about the challenges and opportunities that exist on Maine islands. Our first stop was the Island Institute office on Main Street, Rockland, where Shey Conover, the Vice President of Operations, provided an overview of the 15 year-round, unbridged island communities that the Island Institute works to support. Shey discussed economic diversification, transportation, energy, municipal waste, education, health, and wildlife in the context of Maine Islands. The students were engaged and after an hour of peppering Shey with questions, we wrapped up our time at the Institute to head back to Journey's End Marina where we boarded M/V Reliance and traveled across the bay to Hurricane Island.

On Hurricane, Alice led students on a hike around the island pointing out our sustainable infrastructure, and the remnants from Hurricane's quarry era, which helped provide students with a historic perspective of how many Maine island communities operated in the late 1800s. Alice and the students drew similarities between island communities then and now with the potential challenge of economic dependence on a single commodity - in the quarry era, it was granite and today, lobster. In the evening, we discussed the Maine lobster and scallop fisheries to provide in-depth context on how we manage those fisheries at the state level. 

Colby students gather outside the Vinalhaven Co-op to learn more about the operation and the fishery from Mike Mesko. 

On Friday morning, we traveled to Vinalhaven and stopped in at the Vinalhaven Fishermen's Co-op where Mike Mesko, the president, took some time out of his busy day to talk about how the co-op works and the state of the lobster fishery from his perspective. We also had the opportunity to meet with Andy Dorr, Vinalhaven's Interim Town Manager and Kelsey Byrd, Vinalhaven's current island fellow to ask questions about how to town's planning process is carried out and other issues the community faces. 

We ended the excursion with a ferry run back to Rockland. All in all, hosting the Colby students was a wonderful experience and we hope to do so again in the future!