Naming Nature Friday, November 27, 2009 Naming is a way of knowing something. When fifth and sixth graders come here to the Schoodic Education and Research Center they learn, among other things, how to recognize spruce trees. If you say "Ouch!" when you shake hands with the tree, it's a spruce. Knowing that a tree is a spruce, and that another is a balsam, and yet another is a birch, and a fourth is a maple -- rather than all just being plain old "trees" -- gives a child a way of seeing a forest differently. Naming creates connection. (It is probably one reason that farmers raising pigs for slaughter generally call them "Pig" rather than "Charlie.") Carol Kaesuk Yoon, who has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Cornell and who writes for Science Times for the New York Times, has written a new book about our human impulse to order the world by naming it. It has the title Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science (W.W. Norton, 2009). (Go to the Northeast Park Science Blog for the rest of the story.)

Transforming the SERC Campus Wednesday, November 04, 2009 Over the next 18 to 24 months the Schoodic Education and Research Center campus will become a different place, with a different "feel" and capable of supporting new kinds of programs. As Acadia Superintendent Sheridan Steele puts it, we will compress ten years of transformation into two. Some buildings will be remodeled and repurposed, other buildings will be removed, roads will be rerouted, and the campus will become greener in all senses of the word. Next summer the entire campus will be buzzing with construction work. Packing this much change into a short period of time has required a great deal of planning, involving everything from overall campus design to the kinds of tables we will have in new laboratory spaces. At 7 PM on Saturday, November 14 Supt. Steele will come to Moore Auditorium to describe these plans and talk about the way that the campus will be transformed. Behind all of these changes, of course, are the programs that we run at SERC -- programs that the new campus is designed to support. To provide an overview of these programs, Supt. Steele will be joined by Kate Petrie ("Ranger Kate") who, who runs the Schoodic Education Adventure program at SERC, and Bill Zoellick of Acadia Partners, who works with park staff to develop programs focused on scientific research and teacher professional development. Read full article: 'Transforming the SERC Campus' (868 bytes more)

Offshore Wind Program Tuesday, October 06, 2009 Dr. Bob Marvinney, Maine State Geologist and Director of the Maine Geological Survey, will speak at 7 PM on Saturday evening, October 10, about the state’s process to identify test locations for offshore, deepwater wind energy technologies. His presentation will be at Moore Auditorium on the Schoodic Education and Research Center campus. With a mandate from the State Legislature, the Department of Conservation and State Planning Office have identified seven possible locations and will pare these down to between one and five finalists based on public input. These sites would be available to wind energy companies and to the University of Maine to test new technologies, including blade design, floating turbine platforms, and anchoring systems. This initiative is part of the state’s efforts to position itself as a leader in research and development for wind energy based on the extensive wind resources of the Gulf of Maine. Dr. Marvinney will talk about program goals and progress. Read full article: 'Offshore Wind Program' (868 bytes more)

The National Parks: America's Best Idea Thursday, September 24, 2009 Join Acadia Partners and Acadia National Park this Sunday evening, September 27, for a bean supper followed by a viewing of the new Ken Burns documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." The bean supper and the film viewing will be in the Moore Auditorium at the Schoodic Education and Research Center. Doors will open at 4:30 and we will be serving supper from 5:00 to 6:30. The actual broadcast of Part 1 of the series will begin at 8 PM. Before the broadcast begins there will be opportunities to chat with Park staff and the Acadia Partners staff and Board of Directors, to tour the campus, learn about educational programs, and to view preview clips from the documentary.

Indians in Eden Wednesday, September 02, 2009 Anthropologists Bunny McBride and Harald E. L. Prins will present a trilogy of lectures and book signings to celebrate the publication of their new book, Indians in Eden: Wabanakis and Rusticators on Maine’s Mt. Desert Island, 1840s – 1920s from Down East Books. The programs are sponsored by The Penobscot Indian Nation, Friends of Acadia, The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, and the Abbe Museum. The three lectures will take place in Old Town, at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory's Maren Auditorium, and at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor. Read full article: 'Indians in Eden' (3134 bytes more)

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