Description: The COA GIS website contains interactive GIS maps that can be customized and printed (PDF). The maps represent areas commonly visited on field trips and studied in classes. Maps include COA, MDI, the State and Gulf of Maine and whole world base maps.
Description: The longest distance a human shout has been heard from is just over 10 miles, and that scream happened over a lake. Researchers have estimated that a whale scream, or more so a song, can be heard from over 10,000 miles away! Though we can't always hear these songs because of their low frequencies, whales can listen and respond to each other from oceans away.
Description: The Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Program (BISTRP) is a long-term sea turtle monitoring project that focuses on nesting sea turtles in the Caribbean. BISTRP was initiated by the National Park Service in 1988 after Buck Island was identified as an important nesting beach for sea turtles, in particular for the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle. Since 1988, the program has conducted annual monitoring of the nesting sea turtles on Buck Island with the goal of identifying each nesting female, collecting biological data, and tracking nest success on the island. [show more]
Description: Since long ago, each spring the River Herring swam up the Concord, Sudbury and Assabet Rivers (SUASCO) in unfathomable numbers to spawn. Their numbers turned the sluggish river turbulent with movement, and their masses colored the water black. Nipmuc, Pawtucket, and Massachuset people, their ancestors before them, and later English colonists, treasured these runs for food and fertilizer, and many seasonal communities were once situated at ideal fishing places. The industrial revolution came with largely little heed to the fish or those that used them. [show more]
Description: 'Grand Teton National park is located in Northwestern Wyoming and is home to an abundant variety of flora and fauna, lakes, rivers, and the striking Teton range. The Tetons are the youngest of all the mountain ranges in the Rocky Mountain chain yet are made up of the continent's oldest rocks that date back 3 billion years.'
Description: The history of the trail system on Mount Desert Island is complex, dense, and vast. There were many people who were vital to the creation of the hundreds of trails that exist and have existed on Mount Desert Island. Both organizations and individuals contributed to the planning, building, and maintenance of the trails that make up Acadia National Park.
Description: The Common Loon (Gavia immer) has historically been used as an indicator species during it's summer breeding season. More specifically, loons have been used as an indicator for heavy metals, biocontamination, and acidity (Canadian Lakes Loon Survey).
Description: Songbirds use islands for breeding and migrating. Great Duck Island is located 10 miles from Mount Desert Island, Maine; it is about 200 acres large and consists of a variety of habitat types.
Description: The Harenna forest is the largest cloud forest in Ethiopia, located in the southern region of the Bale mountain range. 60⁰ 20' and 60⁰ 50'N
Description: Nynke's project included conversations with community members and leaders, fieldwork to find abandoned paths, designs of multi-use paths, and map-making in GIS. This project flowed out of an earlier class focused on Active Transportation (Bicycle and Pedestrian) in Bar Harbor in the Spring of 2022. However, this project is not supposed to be about me; I am far from a neutral player that collected information to revitalize Active Transportation advocacy on MDI. [show more]
Description: High number of tourist every summer and the popularity of Bar Harbor are raising the prices of housing on Bar Harbor making it difficult to find affordable houses; especially for people who want to live in Bar Harbor year round, as the incentives to rent out housing to tourists are high. To understand better how to tackle this housing crisis it is important to understand the housing situation in Bar Harbor better, to later be able to find the right locations for future housing development. [show more]
Description: This story map provides a brief presentation and discussion of the water quality data collected from 43 taps on the COA campus during 2022. While 28 elements were included in the test, the report focuses mainly on lead levels from various campus taps.
Description: This PDF contains a sampling of student work from the Spring 2023 Introduction to Journalism class which was shared with the COA community.