Bringing the Sea to Inland and Rural Youth with Maine Sea Grant
As the Casco Bay Cat made its way out into a foggy morning in Casco Bay, a student from Sacopee Valley High School shrugged her shoulders up near her ears and pulled her hood over her head. “What lake are we on?” she grumbled.
But after visiting Bang’s Island Mussel and Kelp Farm and the Ram Island lighthouse, and hearing from people at the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, Maine Sea Grant, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, and Friends of Casco Bay, her attitude had transformed. She stood at the boat’s railing, her head high and a smile on her face as she smelled the sea air. “I didn’t want to come on this field trip today, but I’m so glad I did,” she said. “I’m my best self right now.”
How It Started
Reactions like this from students who participate in Maine Sea Grant’s new Bringing the Sea to Inland and Rural Communities program are not uncommon. Sacopee Valley High School (serving the towns of Baldwin, Cornish, Hiram, Parsonsfield, and Porter) is approximately 40 miles inland from Casco Bay and one of four schools selected by Maine Sea Grant to participate in the pilot year of the program. Each of the five K-12 schools participating in this program is classified as vulnerable, overburdened, and/or underserved. Despite their relative proximity to the sea, many students at the participating schools have never been to the ocean or spent time on a boat.
One of Maine Sea Grant’s strategic goals is to expand its environmental literacy and workforce development programming to new and underserved audiences. Through investing in a new position of Environmental Literacy and Workforce Development Program Manager currently filled by Keri Kaczor, Maine Sea Grant is able to engage more youth from rural and inland regions of the state. Kaczor administers the Bringing the Sea to Inland and Rural Communities program, overseeing the provision of teacher stipends, travel support, equipment, lessons, activities, mentorship, and co-teaching.
During the pilot year of the program, a team of committed educators in these schools collaborated with Kaczor to create project-based learning opportunities in the field and the classroom to help students better comprehend their connections to coastal and marine ecology and bridge the gap between their communities and the sea. Topic areas for field and classroom activities include phytoplankton, food webs, watersheds, water quality, estuaries, climate change, and career opportunities in Maine’s seafood economy. Over the course of eight months, Kaczor visited the educators for multiple one-on-one planning meetings, spent time in their classrooms, co-taught curriculum, and shared resources and hands-on activities to help prepare the students for the field trips.
Even with a modest initial investment, the program was a huge success, as Kristel Anuszewski, an educator at Windsor Elementary School, attested. “I knew my students were going to be a captive audience, but they were absolutely glued to every moment,” Anuszewski said.
Aquaculture as a Learning Tool
Three of the four field trips organized through this program so far were centered around aquaculture. With Maine’s aquaculture sector growing, exposing youth to these career paths and knowledge areas through hands-on experiential learning can be both influential and life-changing. As noted in the Maine Aquaculture Roadmap, “Sustainable aquaculture has tremendous potential to bolster our coastal economy, providing good jobs, local food security, and diversification opportunities for working waterfront families.” Furthermore, Maine’s aquaculture industries are capable of producing animal protein with a low carbon footprint, further solidifying its role in planning for a climate-resilient future. Many different pathways exist within the seafood economy—associate’s, bachelor’s, and higher degrees, micro-credentials, career and technical education programs, and apprenticeships—making it accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds.
Elizabeth Sanborn, Extended Learning Opportunities Coordinator at Sacopee Valley High School noted, “I was pleasantly surprised at how many experts were willing to come with us and give our students so much information. Everyone was willing to share, answer questions, and just generally seemed to enjoy working with the students. It was awesome!”
“Getting students into aquaculture early is so important as they consider career choices,” Anuszewski said. “It also gives students more hands-on experience to better understand the value of sustainability and the importance of environmental responsibility.”
A student holds an invasive green crab 
Students were able to dissect oysters to learn about their anatomy.
The Ripple Effect
Boat rides, touch tanks, and lab tours were particularly popular aspects of the field trips. Getting on the water and experiencing the sea firsthand created deep connections and allowed for memorable, learning moments that couldn’t possibly be scripted. The touch tanks provided the students with the opportunity to observe animals interacting—and, to interact with them, themselves. Many students noted getting to feel and hold starfish, horseshoe crabs, and green crabs as standout aspects of the field trips. The jellyfish swimming off the dock at the Darling Marine Center were a big hit, as well as the opportunities to eat oysters (a first for many of the students).
One student talked about how he was now considering a job in marine biology. Another talked about the possibility of working on a boat in the near future. Exposure to marine biology outside the classroom shifted the students’ perspective and helped them understand the connections between school projects/curriculum and research and opportunities in “the real world.”
Kelly Robbins, a science teacher at Medomak Middle School noted, “Students seeing a real lab and meeting scientists who work at the lab every day is valuable. I hope it gives them more ideas of the opportunities there are for them in science and our local area.”
A total of 160 students and 16 educators were directly impacted by these field trips, yet as Kaczor notes, there were also indirect influences within the school community, even for students and educators who didn’t come on the field trips. As word of the field trips spread through the schools, Sanborn noted that several students approached her to ask if the field trips would be happening the following year too, enthusiastic about participating themselves.
One educator noted that even after living in Maine for 52 years, the program made her realize how much more she still had to learn about Maine—from learning about Wabanaki history and culture through shell middens to the innovative work being done at the University of Maine.
The Future
The pilot year of Bringing the Sea to Inland and Rural Youth was supported by funding from the Onion Foundation alongside creative leveraging of resources at each participating school and core funding from the Maine Sea Grant Program at the University of Maine. Educators from each school all agreed that the field trips/program provided valuable insights, inspiration, and context that helped students understand how classroom-based projects connect with the bigger picture. With additional funding, educators and Maine Sea Grant hope to provide similar experiences to more students in future years.
The amount of work—and funding—that goes into implementing a program like this is substantial. Educators in underserved rural schools in Maine often lack the time and resources to implement curriculum and face considerable logistical challenges to accessing opportunities like those provided by this program. As Anuszewski noted, partnering with Maine Sea Grant made it possible for “these students from rural Maine to experience an opportunity that otherwise would not have been afforded to them…Please keep teaching the teachers so that we can filter this vital information to our students. Involving students in field trip opportunities is the education they will remember.”
Through this innovative program, students from inland and rural communities in Maine gained unprecedented access to the ocean and its ecosystems. By fostering a deeper understanding of marine science and environmental responsibility, this initiative is inspiring the next generation of scientists, conservationists, and engaged community members. Providing inquiry-based, hands-on learning opportunities, programs like this connect youth to science in action.
Programs like this can play an important role in inspiring students’ interests and vision for their future academic and professional careers. Maine Sea Grant works closely with University of Maine partners to support students’ pathways in marine science by offering unique undergraduate and graduate student scholarships, research assistantships, fellowships, apprenticeships and internships. With continued support and expansion, Bringing the Sea to Inland and Rural Youth promises to make a lasting impact on Maine’s students and their communities, connecting them to the natural world and empowering them to make a positive difference for themselves and the planet.
For more information, contact Keri Kaczor 207.974.9502; keri.kaczor@maine.edu
Posted November 27 2024