Teachers from Maine island schools gathered at the Island Institute's offices. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

It’s time to nurture the teachers

There's never been a more stressful time to be a teacher. I say that as someone who worked in K-12 schools for more than 20 years, first as a teacher and then as a principal. Educators enter the profession out of a passion for teaching and helping kids. But today,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Heaven is other people

Another North Haven summer has come, and more or less gone. Most of our friends have departed for points south or west. All but a few boats at the Casino have been stored for the winter. At the time of writing, I am physically, if not emotionally, prepared to begin… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Island girl’ returns to teach on Isle au Haut

Kipp Quinby’s new job is a sort of homecoming. In September, she took over as the teacher of Isle au Haut’s one-room school house, the same room where she attended school as a child. SEE MORE

Students at work in courses on electric outboard maintenance and repair. PHOTO: YVONNE THOMAS

Working Waterfront

Going electric—Training technicians to work on electric outboards

The topic was electric outboards and the course was created with boat yard technicians in mind, but designed for a wide range of levels of familiarity with the content. It was offered in Rockland at Mid-Coast School of Technology in July and in Farmington at Foster Career and Technical Education Center in August. SEE MORE

From left, new Island Institute Fellows: Mark Gorski, Lucia Daranyi, Thomas McClellan, Erin Dent, and Taylor Rossini. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

Island Institute welcomes five new Fellows

Island Institute’s flagship fellowship program, which is celebrating its 25th year, welcomes five new Island Institute Fellows, two new community partners, and five continuing Fellows. The program brings recent college graduates to island and coastal towns to work for two years on a community’s public priorities. The new Fellows are:… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Public, private don’t always play nicely

Imagine the reaction to a town renting out offices in a public library built through the beneficence of Andrew Carnegie a century ago. Or a John D. Rockefeller-donated carriage trail in Acadia National Park being turned into a for-profit go-cart track. It’s not quite as dramatic as all that, but… SEE MORE

Lee Krasner’s “Untitled,” alternative study for mural studioA, WNYC (1941).

Working Waterfront

Ogunquit museum shows Krasner’s work

Krasner’s serious engagement with abstraction began in 1937 when she enrolled in New York’s Hofmann School of the Fine Arts. From the late 1930s until her marriage to painter Jackson Pollock in 1945, she developed an artistic vocabulary that would be sustained throughout her career. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Sea cucumber gunk: deadly weapon, potential biopolymer

In case there was any doubt, our August heat wave makes it clear that summer is in full swing. Summer means the beach, with all the weird sea creatures it has to offer. Among these weirdos is the tropical sea cucumber, Holothuria leucospilota, which is mainly found in the Indian… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In the flow—cytometry tracks tiny organism

The research tools the scientists use to probe the changing ocean—flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry, and the insights they enable—were the topic of the second presentation in Bigelow’s annual summer series... SEE MORE

A baby seal tupilak made by an unidentified Inuk artist. PHOTO: COURTESY PEARY-MacMILLAN MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Northern nightmares: Monsters in Inuit art

The mystery of these figures is not locked in the past and continues to evolve within and beyond contemporary Inuit culture. The 20th century gave rise to a new wave of Inuit artists who moved beyond traditional folklore, inspired by increased contact with the world beyond the Arctic. SEE MORE