Acadia Learning Wins New Round of Maine Education Funding

SERC Institute, based at the Schoodic Education and Research Center at Acadia National Park, recently learned that it will receive $224,846 over the next three years from the Maine Department of Education to continue and expand Acadia Learning, its work helping students and teachers engage in research that is both educationally rich and scientifically important.

Acadia Learning provides training, financial aid, and logistical support to teachers as they involve their students in research activities around the state. The goals of the project are to engage teachers and students in research at SERC and at the University of Maine, and to enable teacher partners to introduce students to the actual practice of scientific research. Working with local school districts, SERC Institute developed a plan for a new program that would provide training to middle and high school science teachers.

Learning to work with and make sense of data is a core skill that is not only an important part of science education, but also a requirement for the informed decision-making and environmental stewardship that students need to demonstrate as citizens grappling with challenges such as climate change and the need to shift away from dependence on oil.

For the past three years, supported by funding from the Maine Department of Education, private donors, the Davis Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Acadia Learning Program has involved teachers and students in collecting samples of soil, plants, and animals from around Maine that are analyzed at the University of Maine to determine the amount of mercury in each sample.

This work on mercury in ecosystems grows out of 20 years of research at Acadia National Park, one of the first places where researchers found evidence of powerful local factors at play in determining levels of mercury toxicity in fish and other living things.

Work on Acadia Learning over the next three years will involve staff based at SERC, and partners at the Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research, the Climate Change Institute, the Center for Science and Mathematics Education Research, and Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine. The work will also continue to be supported in part by NOAA.