Education Director John Van Dis has been working with the St. George School across a range of ages and ability levels. Most recently this has included a series of experiments disguised as challenges to explore potential and kinetic energy. In a recent lesson, John had students build catapults before heading into the woods with hand tools to make bows. There were so many different ways to interact with materials and creatively solve problems in this hands-on lesson!

Catherine Fletcher, a St. George teacher, says, "John is doing a seriously awesome job with this crew. Hurricane Island days are my favorite because I have so much trust in John's ability to hold the group together and keep them engaged".

Vinalhaven 6th graders are working with Education Director John Van Dis on a partnership with local oyster grower Jordan Kramer of Winnegance Oyster Farm testing the viability of 3-D-printed oyster farm equipment.

Students from Vinalhaven and other partner schools will use 3-D printers in their classrooms/schools to print components for oyster growing equipment which we will then field test on our aquaculture site. Students have already designed and printed small scale components on their printers to test ideas of surface area, pressure, balanced versus unbalanced forces, momentum, and filtration. The 6th grade students are using this understanding to optimize their own designs for Green Crab Traps. This is a collaborative effort with Emily Cohn at Vinalhaven School, the Vinalhaven Land Trust, and Hurricane Island.

Early in the new year we started a partnership with The Riley School - just down the road in Rockport, Maine.

Education Manager Kyle Amergian has been working weekly with 4th-8th graders. Starting with the geological history of the Gulf of Maine and plate tectonics, they have moved into ecology and investigating creatures large and small from plankton and benthic creepy crawlies to the charismatic megafauna of the pelagic zone; mapping the ways complex ecosystems and food webs function.

Older students will complete a research project on intertidal organisms this spring if weather and time allow. Part of this process will include timely case studies such as the decline of the Puffin population and migration of lobster populations.

We are excited to be working with Belfast Community Outreach Program in Education, Belfast Area High School, and Oceanside High School. Integrating Hurricane Island research with hands-on learning in local schools, students are investigating the viability of local waters for larval scallop, "spat", collection.

Our team helped students deploy spat bags at the beginning of the school year and will be retrieving the bags with those students in April or May. Students will sort the spat bags collecting data on: the number of spat, size of spat, community and population of other species in the bags, as well as the percent of biofouling (most often caused by bryozoans). This data will join our ongoing data collection to help everyone better understand larval spat recruitment in Penobscot Bay.

In collaboration with the Watershed School Climate Action Leadership Lab (CALL), Hurricane Island will host a weekend for educators and ardent high school students. Activities throughout the weekend are designed to create a coalition of support among those committed to thwarting climate impacts in their own communities.

Learn more about this new collaboration.

With the closing of the scallop season, our collaborative tagging project with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is closing one chapter and starting another. The DMR is now in the process of measuring the scallops and getting all of the location and growth data organized. This data will show us how much the tagged scallops grew in the wild and where they've travelled.

Lead Scientist Phoebe Jekielek is now in the process of studying for her comprehensive exams - consisting of 5 days of written exams and an oral exam with her entire committee.

She is also prepping for some lab experiments at Bigelow Laboratory in early May to evaluate eDNA generation and decay rates of non-spawning scallops at different densities.

After that, Phoebe will oversee a series of field experiments evaluating fertilization success in scallops on our farm and in wild populations. This will help us understand if there are higher rates of fertilization on scallop farms compared to the wild population.

Phoebe was recently interviewed about her work researching scallops and using eDNA. Download the episode here!

We were thrilled to catch this feature and see some of our aquaculture partners in the limelight too - Watch it here!

Over the winter our full staff took time to visit Mook Sea Farm and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Both organizations offered a warm welcome for our staff and shared the exciting work they are doing in the worlds of aquaculture and marine science.

Have you had the pleasure of meeting our Research Assistant, Lucy Williams? Lucy joined Hurricane Island for the summer of 2021 as a Research Intern and has been a vital team member through the fall and during the winter data crunch. Lucy has been instrumental in deploying and analyzing data from the Tilt Current Meter (TCM). You can read Lucy's blogs on deploying the TCM and learn what the data is showing.

Aquaculture Manager Madison Maier used some of her off-season time to attend a First Aid for Dive Professionals course offered through the Divers Alert Network (DAN). Building on her pre-existing Wilderness First Responder certification, this training will help all of our underwater research efforts both in our own aquaculture site and during our field studies on nearby reefs and commercial aquaculture sites. Thanks for having our backs, Maddie!

As the island building season approaches, sneak a peek at the Field Research Station renderings. We are thrilled to have the Maine-based team at OPAL Architecture and OPAL Build designing and constructing this innovative building, which models the environmental sustainability that will define the future of Hurricane Island.

Can't wait to see the Field Research Station be built? Neither can we. Watch the construction model here! Pre-constructed panels using a state of the art fiber insulation will be fabricated off site and assembled on island.

Four hardy souls made their way out to the island in January, and this is their story. We took water samples, checked the facilities and even got in a quick skate on the quarry pond. Unfortunately no Steller's Sea Eagles were spotted, but we did have a terrific time enjoying the rare glimpse into winter on Hurricane Island. Read the Blog!

Sand, sand, sand your boat - gently through the winter. 2021 season captain Julie Winzler is working with Silas and helping get the boats ready. Here's the green gig, all shiny and new for another season of teaching kids how to communicate and work as a team.

In between finishing coats and epoxy drying on the gig, Julie helped Silas with all the upgrades and repairs necessary to launch Sunny. Thanks, Julie!

Work has already begun to make this vessel more comfortable in it's supporting role for our education and research programs. We could not be more grateful or excited to welcome SUNNY to Hurricane Island! Check out the launching video.

We are looking for a Galley Manager/Head Cook and Cook to live and work on Hurricane Island for the 2022 season.

To view the full job description visit our Employment page.

With warmer weather around the corner, be sure you are covered up in style with our hats, t-shirts and hoodies. As new inventory comes in, be sure to check out our SALE on 2021 merch at our Online Store.