Author: Whitney King

Colby College and the Up East Foundation have recently approved four projects for Allen Island during the summer of 2017.   

Adam Howard, Colby Education Program

Every January Term, around twenty-five Colby students in the Education Program complete a practicum at schools near and far, a requirement for majors and minor in education. During the practicum, students serve as assistant teachers, tutor students, work with students individually, observe professional teachers, and prepare and present lesson plans if appropriate. To fulfill requirements of the practicum, students complete 120 hours at minimum.

In January Term 2017, Grace Fowler ’17 became the first Colby student to complete the practicum at Herring Gut. During the practicum, she lived on campus, worked closely with teachers, planned individual lessons, worked with students on an individual basis, and made connections with the local Port Clyde community. As an environmental studies major and education minor, the practicum provided Grace an unique opportunity to combine her interests.

As an education institution guided by alternative methods, experiential forms of education, Herring Gut Learning Center provides Colby students unique learning experiences. Specifically, Colby practicum students are provided the necessary context to:

• Obtain knowledge that is unique to the particular education offered at Herring Gut;
• Have opportunities for teaching experiences in the learning center, work with students directly, and develop skills and knowledge for teaching;
• Examine and clarify attitudes and values about teaching, and practice teaching related skills;
• Gain experience in interacting with learners of different cultural backgrounds, with special problems and needs, and from communities different from their own;
• Develop skills in observation, teaching, guidance and discipline, classroom organization, assessment and evaluation, use of varied materials and equipment, and self-evaluation;
• Develop a questioning attitude of self and the environment to gain insights for growth;
• Appreciate individual differences and legitimate the individual experiences brought to the group setting;
• Develop communication and leadership skills.

In partnership with Colby, Herring Gut is working with a filmmaker to document Grace’s learning experiences during January as a resource for future students considering  a Herring Gut teaching practicum. In future January Terms, we are planning to place two students in this immersive practicum.   

For more information please contact Adam Howard, Director of the Colby Education Program.

It was a beautiful January day on Allen Island and we took advantage of the mild weather to install a repaired weather station.   We are using a NexSense data logger with a cellular modem to access weather and water column data in real time.  Live Weather Data

 

The new Luft 7-series sensor package provides temperature, rain, snow, wind speed, wind direction, and relative humidity data.

 

The visit was also an opportunity to clean the salinity sensors.

 

All of the work was carefully supervised by Dave’s dog Cody.

 

It is the end of the lobster season for many of the local fishermen with thousands of traps stored on the dock for Winter.

Friday evening the students in CI245 and AM266 presented their final semester projects to fellow students, faculty, and friends.  Use the links below to learn more about these amazing class projects.

CI245 Documentary Production: A Editor’s Perspective was a course offered during the Fall of 2016 at Colby College.

A documentary comes to life in the editing room. In this course the students engage with various forms of documentary storytelling from an editor’s perspective. In addition to watching documentary films, students produced and edited three documentary video projects. While attention was paid to developing ideas and production, the class focused most heavily on the editing phase of production. Time was given to refine, recut and reedit. Students learned the art of process, of revision and reimagining, as well as learning valuable technical skills such as using a camera, shooting a scene, and interviewing techniques.

 

Tracing the Midcoast was built by members of “The Cultural Geography of Allen Island,” an American Studies course at Colby College in Fall 2016. We explored how people have created and recreated Maine’s Allen Island—as a material place and an idea—and how those material and cultural constructions reflect beliefs about Midcoast Maine, nature, the past, modernity, community, and the individual.

 

This Saturday Colby Trustee Sandy Buck, Sissy Buck, and a group of Colby facuty met Philip Conkling, Peter Ralston, Buzz  Bullock, and Herring Gut Board Chair Peter Harris for a trip to Allen Island and the Herring Gut School.  Phillip and Peter were the principal island architects that helped Betsy Wyeth transform an uninhabited and over grown island into a unique resource for fishing, education, and research.  The trip was the first visit to the island for several participants and also provided an opportunity the group to interact with Prof. Ben Lisle’s Cultural Geography Class, AM226.

 

http://www.colby.edu/news/2016/10/27/maine-as-a-laboratory-new-partnerships-bring-colby-students-and-faculty-to-allen-island-herring-gut-learning-center/

Allen Island is located in the middle of Muscongus Bay, one of the most productive lobster fisheries in Maine.   This project is installing state-of-the-art climate monitoring equipment to monitor air temperature, wind, rain, and humidity above the dock and salinity, and water temperature in the Allen Island – Benner Island channel.

We left Colby at 0500 to meet the the Archangel at dawn in Port Clyde.   

 

The harbor was covered in early morning fog, but our early arrival was rewarded with great views of the harbor and a spectacular sunrise over Marshall Point Light.

 

Half our group headed south on the island to scout for geologic formations as part of future bedrock mapping projects.   Our Art colleagues were fascinated with the textures of the island from the rocky shores to the wool caught on the branches of the trees from grazing sheep.

Our data loggers use a small microprocessor connected to the internet via a cellular modem.  The contrast in our island projects from chemical sensors, geology, and art added to our collective experience on the island.

 

Instruments and data loggers deployed on the Allen Island dock.   Our weather sensor had a communication error and returned to Colby for trouble shooting.  Our sensors in the Allen Island channel are functioning normally.  The water temperature is a brisk 13.5 oC (56 oF) and getting colder.

The Colby crew at the end of a long productive day on the island.   Everyone is looking forward to coming back soon.

 

Participants left to right:  Francis Dunham, Sergio Madrigal, Ella Maddi, Colette Gould, Tasha Dunn, Whitney King, Amanda Deming, Bonje Obua, Alison Stigora, Daniel and Hayden Harkett.

Seven Colby students, participating in the Colby-at-Bigelow fall semester program, spent two days on Allen Island learning field methods and conducting surveys.

The students collected a nighttime zooplankton sample to characterize the zooplankton community in the passage between Allen Island and Benner Island. They deployed a plankton net with a strobe light, and identified the collected organisms back at the bunkhouse. It was a beautiful fall night, and there was an impressive display of bioluminescence in the waters off the dock. A group of students returned to the water the second night to enjoy the bioluminescent light show

The students also conducted a survey of marine debris, establishing a baseline for future coastal surveys. They worked hard, covering sites around the whole perimeter of the island.

Students examining their zooplankton sample via a microscope and monitor. A mysid captured in a night tow with a net and strobe light. The image was projected from a microscope to a monitor.

Participants
Nick Record
Maria Pachiadaki
Emily Geske
Jared Wang
Echo Chen
Elenia Lin
Julia Park
Tom Kiffney
Ellie Irish
Project: The Ocean Environment, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Colby-Bigelow Changing Oceans Semester