Coastal High School Students Work to Impact the Lobster Industry at Fishermen’s Forum
Two high school students from the Maine Skippers Program exhibiting their project on environmentally friendly ways to clean lobster buoys. Fishermen’s Voice photo
Rockport, Me—More than 75 students in the Eastern Maine Skippers Program presented their year-long collaborative lobster project posters to a full house at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum on Friday, March 4th. The students came from eight coastal high schools: Deer Isle-Stonington, Ellsworth, George Stevens Academy, Jonesport-Beals, Mount Desert Island, Narraguagus, North Haven and Vinalhaven.
Projects covered the lobster industry from egg to trap, and from trap to plate as well as broader topics in the fishery such as regulation, marketing, and qualifications for licensing. Each of the schools created posters to explain their chosen questions, potential impact, what they already know, and what resources they need to finish their projects. Topics range from a new trap design created by a group of Narraguagus High School students to a proposed law on mandatory drug testing from a group of Deer Isle-Stonington students and a scrub brush that attaches to a lobster boat’s pot hauler to clean the rope is hauled from North Haven Community School Students. Other projects include Mt. Desert Island students investigating their local lobster market and Jonesport-Beals students looking at the impacts of changes in boat designs over time.
By investigating the broad scope of the lobster business, students are given the opportunity to think outside the box and dig deeper into the industry. The students’ projects are not just about catching lobsters, but how the economy of their communities functions and sustains itself. The project has a further application beyond students’ high school education by connecting “real world” research that communities can use as they sustain the fishing economies that are vital to Downeast communities. Students are able to learn and practice important skills such as public speaking through testifying before the Legislature, learning about the market chain locally and internationally, what is involved in securing a patent, all of which will prepare them for fishing careers as well as post-secondary education.
About the Eastern Maine Skippers Program
In 2012, Deer Isle Stonington High School and Penobscot East Resource Center, a Stonington-based organization dedicated to a fishing future for Eastern Maine communities, collaborated to create the Eastern Maine Skippers Program (EMSP). With curriculum support from the Rural Aspirations Project, EMSP is a regional program which aims to provide aspiring commercial fishermen and other students interested in fisheries along the Downeast coast the skills needed to be successful in a time of rapid environmental and regulatory change. A cohort of more than 80 students from Vinalhaven, North Haven, Deer Isle-Stonington, Ellsworth, Mount Desert Island, Narraguagus, and Jonesport-Beals High Schools as well as George Stevens Academy remain in their schools and collaborate in the program via technology-based “anytime, anywhere” learning. Students also meet in person 3-4 times per year to participate in events such as meetings with the Department of Marine Resources, the Maine Legislature’s, Marine Resources Committee and the Maine Fishermen’s Forum.
For more information on The Eastern Maine Skippers Program call Christina Fifield, 207 367-2708 or visit www.penobscoteast.org.