Artist-In-Residence Zoe Keller

We were lucky to have Zoe Keller out to Hurricane for two weeks in August for our first ever artist-in-residence program. Zoe worked with us to illustrate two 9x12 pencil drawings featuring the major plants and animals that can be found on Hurricane during June and July. She also created several sketches from her hikes around the island, and gave us some great ideas about how to continue to integrate art and science into our education programs. 

Zoe led morning drawing exercises during our SEAL program to help students warm up the artistic side of their brain. Students enjoyed working with Zoe and embraced the activities, taking time to think critically about how to translate complex and detailed information, like a cluster of wildflowers, onto their paper at the right perspective and scale.

We look forward to welcoming more artists out to Hurricane for short programs, and hope to work with Zoe in the future and use her images to communicate more about Hurricane Island's natural history.

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The most noticeable plants and animals in June

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Most noticeable in July on Hurricane

Family Day on Hurricane

To bid farewell to the summer season and welcome the start of school and fall on Hurricane Island we hosted our first Family Day on Saturday August 30th, 2014. The goal of the event was to get kids of all ages and their parents out to the island to learn a bit more about the Center For Science and Leadership’s mission and programs, as well as enjoy a day of both staff-led and self-guided exploration and fun.

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Enjoying an outdoor barbecue!

The morning kicked off with a staff-led hike around the island. Stops included the meadow garden, and vistas of Little Hurricane Island, Gibbon’s Point, and our small sand beach on the northeast side of the island. As we hiked, staff shared some fun natural history information about the island, stopping to smell the fragrant bayberry leaves and eat huckleberries. Everyone enjoyed a picnic and s’more making during an outside barbecue lunch. For the afternoon session, families were able to choose from a variety of activities: to go on a history hike to learn about the quarrying town that used to reside on Hurricane until 1914; participate in arts and crafts where we made cyanotype sunprints and pet rocks; or take their own stroll around the island. It was a beautiful day on the island and it was energizing to have learners of all ages out on the island at once! Thanks families!

Outward Bound celebrates "50 years on course"

Hurricane Island was the island base for Outward Bound from 1964-2006, and this year marks their 50th anniversary as the Maine Outward Bound School. Although their base has since moved operations to Wheeler's Bay, both organizations collaborated to co-host part of the festivities on Hurricane Island in order to celebrate their history out here, and also celebrate the rebirth of the Hurricane Island as a new educational resource for Maine students and beyond.

Assembling on morning meeting rock

Boats sailed in and filled Hurricane Sound, and soon sounds from revelers filled Hurricane Island, as nearly 400 people returned to reminisce about the life-changing experiences that occurred in this space and shaped them as educators, sailors, and adventurers. Staff from the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership showed guests around our updated facilities, and explained how we are engaging students in our science, sustainability, and leadership initiatives while fostering a new learning community for students, teachers, and field scientists. You can read more about our summer programs here.

Current Outward Bound educators arrived to this event fresh off course, and shared stories and memories with old time educators, and the morning-meeting rock buzzed with excitement, joy, music, and readings. We all celebrated on the evening of August 23rd with a lobster cookout and live music, and the dancing only stopped because we couldn't convince the band to keep playing! Guests finally made their way back to the "tent city" that filled the south end of the island, and then awoke for a final morning meeting before filling boats and then ferries to return home.

We are so glad that we were able to share our space with Outward Bound, and give everyone an opportunity to convene and celebrate Hurricane Island. You can view photos of this event here.

SEAL

This year we ran our first SEAL program for middle school students, which focused on discovering and documenting the natural world through art. We had a great group of kids from all over New England on Hurricane and each one proved to be a talented and enthusiastic naturalist and artist.

A student shows how she depicted her trip to Hurricane

Students started their time on Hurricane by reflecting on how they got here. After showing students different types of non-traditional maps or navigational aids (explore some images we looked at here or here), their first challenge was to design their own map that depicted their journey from home to Hurricane that day. From there we explored a little bit of everything on Hurricane-- students studied the plants, invertebrates, birds, and landscape-level transitions that make Hurricane Island's ecology unique, all while making close observations and drawing what they saw. Every morning students spent time with our artist-in-residence, Zoe Keller, to go through some drawing exercises and warm up their artistic minds. We did everything from blind contour drawings, to lessons on drawing flowers accurately, to a group game of "exquisite corpse," creating fun mashup creatures that are created in segments and passed to the next artist to draw.

One concept we focused on during this program was learning about Land art or Earthworks, and some of the artists behind this movement (Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy). After getting inspired by looking at examples of artists who created land art pieces, students set out to create their own collaborative piece. Students also learned about Vik Muniz and then created an image of Hurricane using marine debris they collected from our beaches. We had a lot of fun being creative, and using Hurricane's landscape as our canvas!

As our SEAL program came to a close, students also took on an independent project that focused on a natural history subject that peaked their interest over the program. Student projects ranged from smaller scale Earthworks, poems, and creative pieces focused on communicating information about sustainable infrastructure on Hurricane.

Learning about lobsters by drawing them!

Register for our 2015 SEAL program here!

Marine Ecology ISLE

Students search through scallop "spat" bags with Field Research Coordinator, Cait Cleaver

Our third and final ISLE program focused on the marine environment surrounding Hurricane Island. Students spent the first part of the week helping our field research coordinator Cait Cleaver with her summer research project focused on scallops. Students counted larval scallops that Cait collected at several sampling sites in Penobscot Bay. This project helped students understand what it means to do hands on field research with delicate specimens, and to be meticulous and accurate in collecting and measuring their subjects.

This week also caught the best tides and students spent several low tide cycles out exploring the intertidal zone. Students helped summer intern Collin Li pilot an annual intertidal monitoring survey and got hands on experience using transects, quadrates, and field guides to properly key out invertebrates for accurate data collection.

One of the highlights of the program was a fun day fishing off of Hurricane and Greens Island for mackerel and pollack. For some it was their first fishing experience but we came back with a huge catch. Students spent the rest of the day learning how to fillet and dissect their fish, and some even enjoyed smocked mackerel on their pizza for dinner.

Fun with Sugar Kelp

The Rozalia Project For A Clean Ocean, one of our partner organizations, visited Hurricane during this program and showed students their remotely operated vehicle, Hector the Collector, which they use to extricate marine debris from the ocean floor in a non-invasive way. The Rozalia project also took students out on a beach cleanup and challenged them to create public service announcements about the problem of marine debris.

Students also spent a day exploring Vinalhaven after learning about Maine’s lobster fishery and hauling traps with local fisherman, Jason Day. On Vinalhaven students got to see the working waterfront and witness the “fish cannon” at Vinalhaven’s own lobster co-op. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the quarry and enjoying ice cream on a hot summers day. We had a fantastic time with this energetic group and enjoyed their enthusiasm for the marine environment. 

Register for our 2015 Marine Ecology ISLE program here!

LNT collaborative programs with Overland

This summer The Hurricane Island Center For Science and Leadership collaborated with Overland to host six separate groups as a stop-over on their Maine Coast Leadership expeditions. The goal for their time on Hurricane was to become certified Leave No Trace trainers. 

To become certified trainers students had to pick one of the seven LNT principles and make a creative presentation on that principle that they then could teach to the rest of the group. This method of training helped students practice public speaking and leadership as they taught their group in an interactive lesson. Several of the Overland students got very creative with their LNT activities. Some highlights included an LNT game show, which was a Jeopardy game created by students that divided categories built around one of the priciples. Some students led the whole group on a hike to find proper pristine camping areas, which had to be 200 feet from water and on a proper camping surface.

Students enjoy some marshmallows cooked on using the mound fire technique.

A favorite principle among all groups was “Minimize Campfire Impact.” During this lesson kids got the chance to learn how to make a proper campfire that has no impact on the environment. This required students putting a tarp on the ground and covering it with six inches of dirt. They then found sticks that were already dead, down, and smaller than their wrists, as well as some already down birch bark, which is a great natural fire starter. After they started their fire with their collected sticks and bark we had time to roast and enjoy s’mores. When the fire had completely burned out students were able to lift the tarp and distribute the soil and ash evenly across the ground. The earth underneath the tarp doesn’t even get warm!

Another favorite principle for students to teach was dispose of waste properly. Some kids showed the proper technique for catching food particles in gray water, and how to disperse water (and toothpaste) evenly over a landscape rather than pour it on the ground all in one spot. Others showed the technique for disposing of human waste properly, specifically by acting out the “8 D’s of Dumping”: Desire, Distance, Dig, Drop, Dump, Disguise, Disinfect, and most importantly, Dance.

We thoroughly enjoyed welcoming over 60 Overland students to Hurricane this summer, as well as their amazing leaders Abby Conyers, Fischer Hazen, Maggie Hughes, and Jeremiah Firman. We hope to welcome Overland back next year! 

Botany ISLE 2014

We had a fantastic 10 days with students who came from out to Hurricane from as far as New York City to learn about the wildflowers, trees, vines, and shrubs on Hurricane Island. The week started off by looking at Hurricane’s gardens and the difference between domestic and wild edible plants. Students learned about soil health and compost, how to manage a straw bale garden, and the difference between linear and sustainable farming and gardening practices. They also learned how crop rotation can keep plant pests at bay as well as contribute to the overall health of a garden.

Students key into leaf characteristics to help identify the difference between quaking and big-tooth aspen trees.

We also challenged students to plan out the meadow garden plot for next years garden. They did a fantastic job and adhered to crop rotation practices as well as suggested a few new plants that we should try to grow. Students took an afternoon to get their hands dirty in our gardens and helped turn over the adjacent plot to the meadow garden to expand it for next year. They also planted seedlings in new rows and put fresh compost in our flower garden. This focus of farming and gardening during the beginning of the Botany program led to a field trip to Turner Farm on North Haven Island, where they were able to explore and learn about what a large scale sustainable farm looks like.

After domestic plants we moved on to wild edibles and students learned to identify and forage for sorrel, cattails, beach peas, orach, elderberry flowers, and raspberries, which they concocted into a Hurricane sourced meal, which was also supplemented by the vegetables and herbs grown in our gardens.

Each morning featured a different category of plant and students learned all the vocabulary and identification techniques to properly key out the most common wild flowers, trees, and ferns on Hurricane.

As a fun final project students collaborated to create a botany themed rap song, which featured some of their favorite plants that they learned about over their ten-day stay.   

Register for our 2015 Botany ISLE program here! 

Ornithology ISLE 2014

For our first ISLE program of the season we had five boys join us for a week of ornithology themed activities including bird-house building, bird bingo, and morning bird hikes. By the end of the program students were able to identify by site and sound the top 25 birds that call Hurricane home during our summer season.

Students also enjoyed some silly moments trying on bird costumes (like the Osprey in this photo) to learn more about how different birds are adapted to the environment that they live in. 

Some of the birds that we were able to see during the week were Cedar Waxwings, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Yellow-Rumped Warblers, and Winter Wrens. We helped students visualize bird songs by looking at spectrograms and they were challenged to come up with their own mnemonics to remember the unique songs for each bird. Some standard mnemonics that professional birders use are “witchity-witchity-witchity” for the Common Yellowthroat Warbler, and “Oh Sam peabody-peabody-peabody” for the White-Throated Sparrow.

The Red-Billed Tropicbird flies next to a Tern

One of the highlights of the week was a special day trip out to see offshore nesting seabird colonies on Seal Island with local naturalist and ornithologist John Drury. John took us around the perimeter of Seal Island and then we were met by Nicole, a researcher with Project Puffin, who is living on the island this summer monitoring puffin and tern chicks at their nesting sites. Birds that nest on Seal Island during the summer include Razorbills, Puffins, Great Cormorants, Common and Arctic Terns, Eider Ducks, and Black Guillemots. We were also lucky enough to see a Red-Billed Tropicbird, an out-of-range visitor to the area, which usually is found along the Baja Peninsula on the West Coast of Mexico.  John Drury believes that this bird followed some Terns and has been happily nesting in the area since.

On our final evening we enjoyed a cookout on the south end of the island and a spectacular view of the full moon rising over the water. It was really fun to watch these students get excited about birding and become talented amateur ornithologists!

Students enjoy a quiet moment as the full moon rises over Heron's Neck lighthouse

Register for our 2015 Ornithology ISLE program here!