Proctor Academy Kicks off Ocean Semester Program

We were joined by a great group of students from Proctor Academy on Hurricane from September 16-22 as they kicked off their Ocean term. After leaving Hurricane, they will be departing on the Schooner Roseway to continue their academics under sail, with a final destination of Puerto Rico.

HIF instructor Oakley explains how lobster traps work, and the culture of the lobster industry

Students spent time on Hurricane learning about Maine's rocky intertidal zone and lobster industry from HIF educators, they were also were in charge of cooking their own meals, learning how to work as a team, and take initiative as leaders in the program. Students enjoyed several rock-climbing sessions on our granite quarry face, and Ocean staff took students out on hikes around the island, students also spent time learning about maritime history and building the leather-bound journals they are going to use for the rest of the trip. We always enjoy having Proctor students out to the island, and we wish them safe travels and fair seas on the second leg of their adventure!

Here is a poem one of the Proctor students wrote while out on Hurricane:

A student shows off a lobster he banded.

A House Beside the Water

Heaven seems a little closer
In a house beside the water.
Where seabirds fly
And foghorns cry
And white sails float and wander.

With waves that splash
And tides that crash
Against the rocks and clutter.
Creating the sound
Of those who have found
Hurricane’s solemn harbor.

They have come to explore,
To love and adore
All that the island can offer.
But did not expect
To gain the respect
Of a lifetime’s work of wonder.

And so I now
Must steer around
To face the other corner.
But I’ll never forget
The time I have spent
At this house beside the water.

Kyle Heller
Proctor Fall 2014

Fall Update: Straw Bale Gardens

Post by Josie Gates, Program Instructor

With growing vegetables comes the task of protecting them from pests of all shapes and sizes. For us on Hurricane our most pesky nuisance is the handful of deer that live on the island. In late August they unfortunately found our straw bale garden (you can read about how we set this garden up here), hopped our fence and ate everything within a night. While it was a bit heartbreaking (every gardener who has experienced this can sympathize) it did get us excited about taking the bales apart and turning them into the plot they sit on in our hopes of making that plot an in-ground garden for vegetables in years to come.

A look at our newly turned in garden

Pulling the straw bales apart

To start that process we first took all of the remaining vegetable plants out of the bales and turned them into our compost pile, which sits in the adjacent granite foundation. Next we cut the strings around the bales and pulled them apart. The bales have been decomposing for the past few months, so they came apart incredibly easily, and what we found in the middle was rich, brown decomposing straw and actual soil! While I knew that this was the goal of the straw bale garden it was very rewarding to see that our summers worth of hard work had really paid off. We grabbed our pitchforks and shovels and turned the straw as best we could into the in ground plot. Next we will cover straw with seaweed and let it sit and continue to decompose all winter. The straw bale garden was a fun and fruitful experiment this year, as well as a great learning tool for our summer programs. I hope to try this gardening method again next year, as well as work on our fencing methods…

Common Ground Fair

We thoroughly enjoyed having an information booth set up at the Common Ground Fair this past weekend. Fair goers found us in the Environmental Concerns tent along with Unity College and the Appalachian Mountain Club. The fair was a great chance to meet representatives from other Maine schools, and make connections with students who are interested in both our programs and college internships. We met many past Outward Bound staff and students who were excited to see that the island has been brought back to life with a guiding mission for science research and education and as well as building a sustainable educational community on Hurricane. We hope to see all those who we met out on the island!  

Islesboro Central School

The Environmental Science class

Students from Islesboro Central School's 9th/10th grade Environmental Science class came out to Hurricane on September 11-13, 2014 to learn about Hurricane Island's phenology monitoring efforts, which are part of the USA National Phenology Network (NPN). Phenology refers to key seasonal changes in plants and animals from year to year—such as flowering, fruiting, falling leaves, and bird migration—especially their timing and relationship with weather and climate.

Hurricane Island has been monitoring three different sites around the island this season, collecting data on a weekly basis that will serve as a local dataset for us to observe the impacts of global climate change on the seasonality, migration, and life history of plants and animals on Hurricane Island. As we develop our phenology sites, we are also hoping to work with more Maine schools to create a small phenology monitoring network where students can start to ask their peers from other schools for their data to address questions about microclimates and seasonal differences across Maine.

While Islesboro students were out on Hurricane, they focused on improving their botanical identification skills and learning the basics of phenology monitoring. Students paired up and were each in charge of finding and presenting on Maine trees that are listed in the NPN, taking time to highlight observations that they made about features that would help their peers be able to positively identify species in the field. We spent part of the last day on a long "plant-off," where students competed to be able to identify the plants they had just learned as they were pointed out during a hike around the island. By the end of their time on Hurricane, students were comfortably able to distinguish between different species of spruce trees, aspen, and speckled alder. Our education staff will go out to Islesboro this spring to help them set up their own phenology monitoring sites! Stay tuned for how this project develops!

Students work on field ID to prepare for phenology monitoring.

Here is a student quote from the trip:

"The following are reasons why our trip to Hurricane Island was awesome: First of all, we got to be outside, which was, literally, a breath of fresh air. I am interested in plants, their uses, and learning how to identify them, and we certainly did quite a bit of that - outside! I enjoyed that part a lot. I learned about the difference between shrubbery and trees, and between different types of pines, as well as how to identify wildflowers and vines...and more! So that was cool. Another thing that I really enjoyed doing during that trip was splitting into groups and taking the plant identification form things, and getting to learn about a specific plant in front of us, and draw conclusions about it.

I [also] hung out with people that I didn't normally hang out with who weren't in my grade level, and laughed a lot, which was fun! I also spent more time than usual with other people in my class that I don't usually hang out with, and realized that they can also be pretty fun to be around. Also, that one moment where all the freshmen decided to lie down on that flat rock, look up at the night sky, and also actually be quiet for a series of minutes was not only the nicest, most peaceful moment ever, but it was also the most connected I feel we have ever been to each other. All in all, I learned a lot and had fun."

North Haven Middle School 2014

To kick off the fall season on Hurricane we hosted the North Haven Middle School 5th and 6th graders for a two-day exploration of wild edible botany. Students started off by learning about the basic names of plant parts and how to identify plants with field guides. They also learned about how plants edibility changes with the seasons, about edible plant habitat and environment, and the differences between domestic edible plants and wild edible plants.

A student spends time drawing a field guide entry for her edible plant: the high-bush cranberry

From there they focused on looking at the top ten edible plants that can be found on Hurricane. Each student was assigned one of those plants and spent time on a hike around the island identifying them and collecting specimens, which they brought back to the lab to do more research. The students then worked on creating their own field guide entry of their foraged edible plant, which included sketches and paintings as well as information. The North Haven Middle School students did a great job at being creative with their field guide entries and will continue to work on them back at school. 

The edible plants that students focused on while they were at Hurricane include: bayberry, cattail, rose hips, sheep and wood sorrel, huckleberry, high-bush cranberry, red clover, orach, sea rocket, beach pea, mustard greens, and raspberries and blackberries.

We finished the first evening with a Hurricane-sourced rosehip applesauce (a great vanilla ice cream topper), and a sweet red clover, sorrel, apple, and rosehip drink. We hope students will be able to pick out tasty trail-side edibles when they are back on North Haven!

Farm-to-Table Harvest Moon Supper

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The menu from the evening

On September 8th, the night of the Harvest Moon, we hosted 45 guests for a dinner catered by Ladleah Dunn, who owns and operates Sailors Rest Farm in Lincolnville, Maine. The theme was island-sourced farm-to-table dining. HIF staff have worked hard this year to grow more of our own food on island, and this supper was a great way to celebrate our own garden efforts. Ladleah did a superb job of sourcing the ingredients for the meal from the mid-coast area.

Guests enjoyed a ride out to Hurricane on the Equinox and the Reliance and were welcomed with an Elderberry Kir Royal. After a walk around the main campus and up to the gardens, guests sat down to a four-course meal. As dinner came to a close Ladleah introduced herself and her staff, and explained her love for Hurricane Island, which started when she was a student on Hurricane 15 years ago. As the Harvest moon rose over Greens Island crème brulee and coffee were served for desert. 

We are very grateful for those who joined us for our Farm to Table dinner this fall, and hope to continue the tradition in years to come as we continue to expand our gardens and grow more of our own food on Hurricane. Thank you to all of the local farms and venders, and especially to Ladleah and her fantastic staff for making it such a memorable night.

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!