The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the Island Institute a three-year, $1.2 million grant for a project designed to encourage students in a pilot group of Maine island and coastal schools to pursue technology-related careers. The project is called CREST (Community for Rural Education Stewardship and Technology). It will provide participating teacher-student teams with a combination of technology training and oral history skills with a goal of better preparing rural students for a future in a diversified Maine economy.
Schools in the island communities of Vinalhaven, North Haven and Islesboro are among eleven that have been selected to participate in the project. While not all selections have been made, the list of participating schools so far includes Fort O’Brien Elementary School (Machiasport), Georges Valley High School (Thomaston), Greely High School (Cumberland), Portland High School, St. George School (Tenant’s Harbor), Shead High School (Eastport), Stonington-Deer Isle High School (Deer Isle) and Washington Academy (East Machias).
The hope is that students will complete the three-year program with a new appreciation of the unique history and culture of their communities — and new skills that will help them contribute to a sustainable future for these communities. The Institute’s partners in the grant are Bowdoin College and the University of Maine at Machias.
“This grant provides important national recognition of the strength and potential of Maine’s coastal and island schools, teachers, and communities,” said Island Institute president Philip Conkling. “Without their involvement and support, this project would not have been possible. Schools are often the single most critical factor in these communities’ viability, and the NSF CREST grant will provide additional resources to build on the solid work that island schools already are doing.”
He noted that communities would benefit from this grant in the form of technology equipment and stipends for students and teachers to attend CREST career fairs, college campus visits, and summer institutes.
The Island Institute’s Education Officer, Ruth Kermish-Allen, and Shey Veditz, the Mapping Specialist at the Institute, will serve as principal investigators for the NSF grant, building on several years of place-based and technology education work in island schools.
According to Mike Kimball, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Maine at Machias, the CREST project will foster a much-needed sense of connection to — and stewardship of — the rural communities participating students call home. Kimball, another of the principal investigators of the NSF grant, said: “We hope this project will foster in participating students a sense of wanting to give back to their community in the future, and of seeing the potential in technology as a way of giving back.”
The University of Maine at Machias, Kimball noted, “is uniquely positioned as a partner in the grant, with a fully functional GIS facility and a major focus on connecting the work we do as a university with the concerns and needs of our surrounding rural communities.”
Anne Henshaw, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Coastal Studies Center at Bowdoin College, is the fourth principal investigator under the NSF grant. “For Bowdoin, this work represents an important opportunity to engage with coastal and island communities in meaningful work that builds educational and technological capacity,” Henshaw said. She will be teaching participating student-teacher teams the skills of interviewing community members and collecting oral histories, while learning to use digital audio recorders, databases, video cameras and multimedia “to convey the tapestry of a community and culture.” Using these techniques, “kids learn about the history and culture of their communities and the role that their neighbors play in the identity of a place,” Henshaw said.
Under the grant, teams of students and teachers will learn to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, develop websites, and learn ethnography/oral history collecting skills. Summer training workshops held each year will help students and teachers refine these skills and build leadership experience. Participating students will visit college campuses and have the opportunity to be mentored by college students. Career fairs will help build students’ awareness of technology-related career opportunities. CREST participants are encouraged to become leaders in their schools, bringing the benefits of the program to more than 2,000 other students and teachers during the course of the three-year CREST project.