Focus on Science

Experiential and Place-based

 

At CSG we believe that education should be experiential and tied to place. Our focus on Marine Science stems from this belief, and our desire to provide girls with science that is exciting, rigorous, hands-on, and field-based. Our home on the coast of Maine draws us naturally to focus in our Coastal Marine Ecosystems class on local natural habitats as dynamic, diverse, and complex. We also learn how they have been altered by changes brought about by human activity.

Some of the great places on the Maine Coast that we have visited include:

  • Pemaquid Point
  • Giant's Staircase, Harpswell
  • Sand Beach, Acadia National Park
  • Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve

 

Improving Ocean Literacy

 

 

Changes currently taking place in the world's oceans as a result of human actions make it imperative that all citizens understand the majesty of the ocean and the important ways that we depend upon it. Through our teaching of Ocean Literacy principles and through hours spent on rocky shores, beaches and saltmarshes, CSG students return home substantially more aware of the biological diversity of the world's oceans, and of the threats faced by the oceans today. They are better equipped to shape their own futures taking the ocean's future into consideration.

 

 

 

  Helping girls thrive in science

We also believe that girls are most likely to thrive in science when they can witness firsthand the applicability of what they are learning, and when they learn in an environment of enthusiasm and total engagement. Marine science class at CSG teaches both scientific methodology and hands-on natural history. Students get to know dog whelks, blue mussels and rockweed up close and personal, and learn to ask probing questions about their lives and their biological interactions.

 Some of the many interesting species we interact with every day include:

  • Common periwinkle (Littorina littorea)
  • Horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus)
  • Quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria)
  • Knotted wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum)

 

 

 

 

Providing Strong Role Models

 

Women are still under-represented in the field of oceanography. We recognize that girls' positive interactions with women scientists, engineers and mathematicians give them a profound and lasting sense of the possible for their career choices. Our guest speaker series and our visits to labs give students opportunities to hear about these women's work and to ask them about their careers.

Some scientists and mathematicians we have heard speak at CSG and at local venues include:

  • Dr. Hayat Sindi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Dr. Katy Payne, Cornell University
  • Dr. Shelley Tallack, Gulf of Maine Research Institute
  • Dr. Amy Johnson, Bowdoin College
  • Dr. Chloe Bulinski, Columbia University

Understanding Science and the Environment

 Students learn about how society seeks solutions to environmental problems through scientific research and policy. Some of the research facilities where we have studied and visited scientists and researchers include:

  • Darling Marine Laboratory
  • Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory
  • Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
  • Bowdoin College Coastal Studies Center
  • Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center of the University of New England
  • Laboratories of the Maine Department of Marine Resources

 

 

 

Delving Into Independent Research

A vital part of Coastal Marine Ecosystems class is independent research. Students do their own research, working in small teams to design and carry out projects which they present in Exhibitions of Learning at the end of the semester.

Some questions that CSG students have researched are:

  • Effects of oil on scuds, Gammarus finmarchicus
  • Salinity changes with depth in the Little River
  • Survival and growth of mussels transported to different habitats
  • Growth of knotted wrack, Ascophyllum nodosum, relative to climate

 

 

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