A recent and startling increase in tick-borne Lyme disease among Islesboro residents gave nine students in Islesboro Central School’s ninth grade, and two of their teachers, science teacher Heather Sinclair and business and computer education teacher Vicki Conover, a unique and perfect opportunity to combine classroom and experiential learning. To examine the connection between the island’s deer population and the increase of Lyme disease, students in Ms. Sinclair’s biology class conducted primary scientific research to determine the island’s deer herd size, then with Ms. Conover’s guidance used GIS and computer applications to analyze and present the data to propose one possible cause of the disease’s increase.
As a Health Center Advisory Board (HCAB) member, Ms. Sinclair heard concerns about the deer herd’s possible relationship to the spread of Lyme disease on island. The HCAB decided to conduct a deer count and hired a consulting firm, Stantec, to design a survey. The students and twenty community volunteers did the on-the-ground research, following the procedure recommended by Stantec. To establish a sample, Stantec identified thirty-three random transects, lines across the island, that included representative terrain and habitat. The students and Stantec both analyzed the data that volunteers gathered.
Islesboro Central School Principal Heather Knight commented on how seriously the students took the project, which included counting groups of deer pellets, potentially an opportunity for scatological humor. Adult volunteers worked mornings, and adult and student volunteer teams went out in afternoons over four days in March. Teams followed the lines across the island using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and compasses for back-up especially when tree canopy obscured satellite connections. The students themselves programmed the GPS units.
When volunteers arrived at predetermined plot points, the teams measured off one hundred square-foot areas and counted the number of pellet groups within that area. Ms. Sinclair said it took a lot of discipline and scientific rigor for the students and volunteers to resist the temptation to count pellet groups just barely beyond the designated areas.
Occasionally the plot point landed in someone’s living room, or on a driveway or beach where traffic or tide could sweep away pellet groups. In some cases, students with local knowledge recognized the potential for invalid information in certain plot points. For example, they knew that a caretaker may have disturbed pellet groups by mowing and raking an area.
The students eliminated those plot points from their analysis as they used the data with a formula that calculated the island deer population at 76 deer per square mile. A normal herd size is generally accepted to be 15 per square mile. A dense deer population greatly enhances the potential for deer ticks to move from deer to deer and become infected with Lyme disease. Localities with low deer populations show a greatly reduced incidence of Lyme disease bearing ticks.
Stantec scientists arrived at a lower number of deer, 62 per square mile, plus or minus six deer, for a total of 744 deer on the island, more deer than year round residents. Stantec used a more precise data analysis technique, adding in known numbers of deer taken by hunters, and using more conservative numbers of data points than the students did. Despite the differences in number crunching, Stantec double checked the student analysis, and Ms. Sinclair reported that they were “blown away by the extent that the students pulled off the project.” The level of community commitment to the project also impressed the consultants.
Ms. Conover described the project as an “ultimate team teaching experience.” In fact, the PowerPoint presentation that the students developed presented by Ms. Conover and Ms. Sinclair before Community for Rural Education, Stewardship and Technology, an Island Institute program, showed how the project touched on all the organization’s goals of team teaching, community involvement, student driven work to solve real world problems and using technology to do it.
Each student prepared a section of the presentation and offered their work on-island at Science Night where many HCAB members saw it. Additionally, the students made the posters on view at Town Meeting for the community to read about the project. Informing the community was an essential part of the project. Ms. Sinclair said, “This class knows that this is an island issue and now they have a stronger sense of how a decision will be made to solve the Lyme disease problem.”
The students also entered their project in the Maine State GIS Championship, and took several prizes competing against six teams from Bangor High School, which offers classes specializing in GIS. ICS merely includes GIS as one of its technology offerings.
The students’ work gives the community one more piece of information to use in policy-making. The over-population of deer not only increases the chance of tick borne disease, but is having substantial impact on the nature of Islesboro’s forest. Deer prefer hardwoods and those trees are not regenerating at a normal rate; the deer are also browsing heavily on balsam firm, whiter cedar, even red spruce, and more invasive species like barberry and honeysuckle are gaining footholds.
Most Islesboro residents have known for years that the island had too many deer. With this research project, however, the students and Stantec have given scientifically acceptable proof of it.
Sandy Oliver is a freelance writer on Islesboro.