Pathways 101

29 students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School's pathways 101 program came out to Hurricane September 29-30, 2014, for an art-science integrated program focusing on collaboration and group work. Students first spent some time learning about the impact of trash in the marine environment--how marine debris can harm animals through entanglement and ingestion, and how long different types of marine debris can persist in the environment. We then went out to clean up Hurricane's coastline, quantifying what we found by using a cleanup form created by the Rozalia Project. We have been doing beach cleanups regularly this season, but students still found 627 pieces of trash in just over an hour!

After collecting and sorting the trash, we split students into three teams to brainstorm how they were going to visually communicate the problem of marine debris. Inspired by artists like Chris Jordan, Kim Preston, and Angela Haseltine Pozzi, students spent time in their groups determining the materials they wanted to use, the location for their art piece, and the premise behind what they were making. We worked with them to think critically about how their art could be designed to intentionally make a statement about marine debris, and their final projects reflected the time they had taken to be creative and have a clear message.

The first team created a lobster made out of lobster buoys and spindles, and set it crawling in the intertidal, which they said made sense because most of the trash we find on Hurricane's shores is related to the lobster industry. Underneath the buoys that made up the lobster's tail, students wrote out facts about the number of traps Stonington fishermen lose every year and the statistics about lobster debris that has been found on Hurricane Island.

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A student reads one of the marine debris facts written under the buoy lobster tail

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The second team created a piece that featured a green crab made out of an old boogie board found during their beach cleanup. Because students in this program had also participated in our Eastern Maine Skippers kickoff program, green crabs, an invasive species to Maine, were on their mind. These students recognized that marine debris could also be considered an invader to Maine's coastline--despite our best efforts bringing students out to clean up Hurricane's shores this summer, these students found only 10 fewer pieces of trash than our first group, the Logan School, who came out in May--and trash is ubiquitous in Maine's intertidal, like green crabs.

The third group opted for a more abstract sculpture of the marine debris they collected, and they built it near an old navigation tower at the South end of the island. They wanted to show that marine debris, like this man-made tower, will persist in the environment for hundreds of years. The whole team sat, connected to their work as they presented, to symbolize that they all have contributed to the problem.

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We appreciate all of the students help in keeping Hurricane's coastlines clean, and for their creative energy around these trash-art installations!

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!

Apprenticeshop Sailing Week

Post by Oakley Jackson, Program Instructor

We set sail aboard the Twins on a four-day orientation voyage with seven apprentices from The Apprenticeshop in Rockland this past week. Departing from Hurricane Island on Monday afternoon (September 22, 2014) we were met with strong gusting winds from the North West. Many of the apprentices had prior sailing experience and we were confident the Twins could handle the 20-knot winds. The Twins proved to be sturdy vessels and we made good time up the Eastern shore of Vinalhaven before reaching the narrows between Leadbetter and Vinalhaven and deciding to tuck our tails and make the down wind run back to the shelter of Lobster Pound Cove on Greens Island.

Sam works with students to determine the course

By the time we sailed away from Greens on Tuesday morning the wind had picked up to a steady Westerly breeze. With the wind behind us we skirted out past the Southern end of Vinalhaven, passing the outer islands of Brimstone, Hay, and Otter. Once around we pointed our bows North and made one long tack along the Western shore of Vinalhaven, past North Haven and all the way to Butter Island, which neighbors Eagle and Great Spruce Head Islands. As we entered the cove we were met by schooling mackerel chasing their prey along the surface. Despite our best efforts we did not get a single bite on our hooks. It was a picture perfect day and we all expressed our immense gratitude to the weather gods for giving us such a fine day of sailing.

Sailing the twins, Castor and Pollux, in tandem

We awoke to a calm sea on Wednesday morning. Manning the oars we began the laborious task of rowing the high-sided Twins. Rowing beneath the lichen covered cliffs of Hardhead Island I felt as though I had been transported to the coast of Ireland or some other far-off land. To our delight the wind stiffened out of the East and we were able to make use of the sails to push us through the Little Thoroughfare into the North Haven Thoroughfare. After picking up two more crew from the ferry we tacked our way out past the stone monument off of Crabtree Point on North Haven and on across the bay to Monroe Island. Our last night was spent ashore on Monroe before making the final passage into Rockland Harbor and returning the Twins to their home birth at the Apprenticeshop. 

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."