Eleven coastal and island schools participating in CREST (Community for Rural Education Stewardship and Technology) have begun work on three-year projects. Each project provides opportunities for students to utilize training in GPS (global positioning systems) and GIS (geographic information systems), web design, digital camcorders and producing ethnographic interviews.
The projects will provide opportunities for varied segments of communities to unite in addressing issues that are important to them, and for sharing all of the findings through each school’s CREST web site.
CREST is funded by a $1.2 million grant to the Island Institute from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program is part of NSF’s Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers. It pays stipends to teachers and provides technical equipment and materials for each school.
CREST aims to encourage Maine students to use technology to find creative solutions to community challenges and to promote students’ awareness of and interest in technology-related careers they might pursue in Maine.
The projects offer seemingly endless possibilities. As teacher Maura DiPrete of Searsport says, “All we need is more time in every day.”
At Deer Isle-Stonington Schools, students will address island development, affordable housing and property transfers. Teacher Anne Douglass says one group has begun to gather data on the transfer of coastal property from year-round residents to summer people. They will use GPS coordinates to map their findings. A second group of students is searching for descendants of islanders who served as crew for an America’s Cup defender (Columbia in 1899). Douglass says this group needs help from anyone who can provide information about the “Island Boys,” as the crew was called. Students will use digital camcorders to interview residents who have memories to share.
Students in other grades are honing skills with GPS units by participating in scavenger and treasure hunts. Later, these skills can be used to pinpoint island land trust holdings, and students can use GIS to transfer their locations to local maps.
Sue Almendinger, a teacher at Fort O’Brien School in Machiasport, says the school’s CREST team has decided to become involved in two community issues: creation of a town park for residents and the impact of red tide on the town’s economy. Students plan to map and possibly film proposed locations for the town park. They want to conduct in-school and community surveys to determine what sort of activities members of the community would like to see available at the park, such as hiking and biking trails, and picnic and play areas.
Students hope their work on red tide closures, which caused huge economic losses in 2005, will encourage the state to test waters more frequently after a closure so that flats can be re-opened as early as possible. Almendinger says that in addition to studying causes of red tide, students will use camcorders to interview local diggers, young and old, to gain historical perspective on closures.
Students at Georges Valley High School, which serves the communities of Cushing, St. George and Thomaston, felt CREST provided a good opportunity to create a project that would encourage communication among these widespread areas. “Students say they don’t feel connected to students outside their own community,” said teacher Peggy Weeks. “They hope to use the technology to create some kind of project that would help bring them together.” Ideas so far include mapping where different students live who have common interests like snowboarding or downhill skiing, conducting camcorder interviews of different people in each town and having them explain what activities are available in their communities, and interviewing adults in communities to learn about the work they do and jobs that might be available.
Melissa Skahn, an administrator at Greely High School in Cumberland, says the CREST team there has focused on learning more about the extensive network of trails in Cumberland and North Yarmouth. Students plan to use their new skills with GPS and GIS to map trails currently in use and others that have not been maintained. They want to help nonprofit groups in the area such as the historical society, and will interview town residents about the historical use of the trails and areas they go through. That information, said Skahn, will lead them to study the economy of the area, including its long history of farming. “There used to be a large number of greenhouses here, as well as farming,” she said. “The project will make it possible for students to document how the nature of the community has changed dramatically.” Students may decide to produce a brochure of the trail system.
Islesboro Central School kindergarten and first grade students are teaming with ninth graders to produce an illustrated Island ABC Book in which each letter will represent a different place on the island. The younger students will go out with ninth graders trained in using GPS and record the different points, which will then be located on a map included in the book. “They hope some locations will lead to opportunities for ethnographic interviews,” said teacher Vicki Conover.
CREST team students will also update and redesign the school’s web site. They have expressed interest in including more information about the school and practical data like school lunch menus and sports calendars.
John Pincince, who teaches horticulture to Islesboro high school students, says CREST offers an opportunity to expand the school’s Orchard Project, which over the past five years has collected island orchard data and grafted new trees at the school. This fall, students have continued to collect apples from trees throughout the island. They have set up a database of tree locations with coordinates determined with GPS.
To identify the different types of apples, they consult with John Bunker, an apple expert who lives in Palermo. The students plan to use their database to create an island map with apple tree sites. “One use for this could be to overlay the map with plans for development,” Pincince said, explaining that “If we find some heirloom apples are threatened by development, we can at least collect scion wood from the trees and graft them onto root stock.” Students also plan to conduct camcorder interviews with owners of the apple trees to learn about the history of the sites and the apple varieties.
At Lubec Consolidated School, students are continuing work on the Mowry Beach project to create a trail from the school to the ocean. Teacher Michelle Reynolds said they would use their GPS units to map the trail. Students can use their camcorders to interview local residents and learn about the history of the property and more generally about the economic history of Lubec: what has been, is, and what could be.
“They want to make an interactive map of Lubec that shows up to 20 of the nicest places in Lubec to visit,” said Reynolds, adding that this could be of interest both to residents and tourists. The map would pinpoint sites like restaurants, lighthouses, hiking trails, water access and a sandbar that is a favorite place to see migratory birds. In addition to putting the map on their CREST web site, students plan to create a trifold brochure that will be available in local businesses, the library and other public places.
The North Haven Community School has decided to use CREST to learn more about clamming on North Haven. Teacher Louis Carrier says the students will interview residents who once used clamming to support their families and also talk with the few remaining individuals who harvest the small number of open clam flats. Students want to find answers to questions like “What has happened to this once-thriving profession? Why are the clam flats closed? Is there some pollutant involved, and if so, what is the cause?” said Carrier. Ultimately, students hope their findings will help residents determine a way to re-open flats and revive North Haven’s clamming tradition.
This year, students are focusing on interviews with residents about North Haven’s clamming history and using GPS and GIS to locate clam flats. Next year, they will identify clam beds that could be seeded and revived for harvesting.
The CREST team at Searsport District High School has been collecting environmental data to help town officials develop a harbor management plan. Teacher Maura DiPrete says students are looking at the history of wetland communities to determine how they have changed. Their GPS units make it possible to collect data at specific GPS waypoints (locations) on aspects of the harbor environment like shellfish and worm flats, vegetative communities bordering the water, areas with water access, and areas where increased pavement has added to runoff into the harbor. They plan to create GIS map layers to share with the town.
Students are also addressing the questions, “Why are people here in Searsport and what keeps them here?” They have interviewed several residents to determine how community resources have been used in the past 100 years, record what changes people have seen and look at controversial issues like development or protection of Sears Island. DiPrete says they are focusing on the history of the town’s popular Mosman Park as part of this ethnographic study and also want to obtain input from recreational and working fishermen. The team hopes to share these oral histories on the school’s radio station as well as on their web pages.
Sonja Schmanska, a teacher at St. George School in Tenants Harbor, says the small school has a rich history of community involvement. In the past, students have completed many projects that focus on the history, importance and preservation of community resources and work, including tourism, fishing, quarrying, aquaculture, local flora and fauna and art and culture. “One of our goals through CREST,” she said, “is to get help transferring and preserving all of our old recorded interviews from years past.”
During this school year, students will select a similar topic of local interest and conduct personal interviews, create an iMovie file of the interviews, transfer their findings to a web site and display the work for the community. They will also be using GPS and GIS to map data such as points of public access to the water, the location of the old schoolhouses on the peninsula and the different types of trees on a nature trail constructed by sixth graders.
Students at Vinalhaven Middle School are considering the question “Will Vinalhaven be able to maintain its way of life in the face of development?” Teachers Rob Warren and Pat Paquet said that to gain perspective, students have been interviewing elderly island residents, asking them “How they have seen the island change over the course of the last 50 years,” “What positive and negative changes have you observed?” and “What are your suggestions for the future?” They also will interview working lobstermen during January before the spring lobster fishing season begins.
Paquet has been working with students to use GPS and GIS to plot the marine use of property and compare residential and non-residential uses in the past and present. They will coordinate their work with the Vinalhaven Land Trust, which has already accumulated data on waterfront use.
Vinalhaven High School students have built their CREST project around Freya, the 30-foot steel sloop that vocational students refurbished over the past three years. On Sept. 24, teacher Mark Jackson and a student, Philip Hopkins, left on the first leg of the Freya’s voyage to St. Augustine, Florida (WWF Nov. 2006). Subsequently, four other students will complete legs of the trip. The students will send back sound recordings (they felt digital camcorders would be too intrusive on the small craft) of their journals and of interviews they conduct with people they meet along the way. Students at the school will edit the journals and interviews, which will then be posted on the CREST web site and perhaps broadcast over community radio station WERU. “Students hope to put a map on the web site using GPS and GIS technology and maybe plot FREYA’s course during the trip,” adds Jud Raven, a teacher at the high school. When the trip is completed, students will give a presentation to the community.
Students at Washington Academy, located in East Machias, are examining ways to increase eco-tourism in their area. They plan to map hiking and biking trails, tennis courts, ball fields, skateboard areas, a ropes course, salt water access points and ATV and cross country skiing trails. They also want to identify and pinpoint sensitive areas that need to be protected, such as salmon habitat. Teacher Donald Sprangers says they have contacted two ATV clubs whose members are interested in working with students to gather data points and map the trails. “One reason they’re excited,” said Sprangers, “is because with our technology, we can easily make changes to the map as land ownership and permission to cross property changes.”
Students created a PowerPoint presentation on their CREST project to show the Chamber of Commerce board of directors in November. Later, they will share the presentation with the community at a Chamber “Eggs and Issues” breakfast.
In addition to mapping recreational areas, students will use their camcorders to collect stories from townspeople about local history, particularly on topics like the trails, the river, rail service and local personalities. Ultimately, they will publish their map layers and interviews on their web site and perhaps in some other form. q