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12/27/02
The Marine Environmental Research Institute
(MERI) has received a $15,000 grant from The Marpat Foundation
to support its education programs, which serve the research
organization’s constituency of more than 140,000 people
in mid-coast Maine. “We're delighted to receive this
grant for the 10th consecutive year from The Marpat Foundation,”
said Dr. Susan Shaw, MERI Founder and Executive Director.
“Our education programs are strengthened and sustained
by personal donations and grants – it is this kind of
ongoing annual support that enables MERI to continue to offer
high quality education programs for the community year round.”
Among the summer education programs that the Marpat grant
will support are MERI’s Island Explorer Trips for children
ages K-12, and Eco-Cruises for families, which offer children
and adults opportunities to explore the ecology of Blue Hill
Bay aboard the R/V MERI, with an emphasis on stewardship of
ocean resources. In 2003, MERI also will offer special charter
trips for those interested in seabirds, marine mammals, lobster
ecology, and/or tide pooling.
The Marpat grant additionally will allow MERI to build on
its internship programs in 2003 by offering six Marine Biology
Internships to college students, and three Junior Internships
to high school students on a competitive basis. During the
school year, Internships are offered to high school and college
students who can earn school credit in marine sciences. The
grant also will support the MERI Seal Program, allowing it
to take on up to four children, ages 12-13, who have participated
in MERI field trips, and can share their knowledge about the
marine environment with younger children.
MERI’s new Ocean School Program in the Sea Library and
Ocean Aquarium Room will benefit from the award as well. Introduced
in the fall of 2002, the program offers sequential classroom
lessons on the world’s oceans and the Maine coastal
ecosystem to elementary and high school classes, ecology clubs,
and other groups. The lessons, which take place at MERI’s
Center for Marine Studies in Blue Hill, are specifically designed
to help K-12 students achieve Maine state learning standards
in the sciences. Ocean School lessons will continue throughout
the academic year, culminating in beach-walks and island field
trips. As part of the Program,
a teacher training course and teacher resource kits will be
developed for national distribution.
Other programs that the recent grant
will benefit are MERI’s Ocean Story Hour for pre-schoolers,
Hands-On Science for elementary school students, and Ocean
Video Night for individuals and families. Every Friday in
January and February 2003, Ocean Video Night will feature
the award-winning “Blue Planet: Seas of Life”
series, beginning with ‘Ocean World’, the first
video in the eight-part series, on January 10. The award also
will allow MERI to continue to offer its marine discovery
programs, featuring touch-tank inhabitants, to the region’s
libraries, reaching thousands of children and adults in mid-coast
Maine.
For coastal communities, MERI acts as a scientific information
resource on public policy initiatives to protect ocean resources
and public health. The Marpat award also will support the
organization’s current community outreach initiatives,
which include: a distinguished speaker series to educate coastal
communities on ocean issues such as the impacts of aquaculture,
dredging, and land-to-sea pollution; an initiative addressing
the health hazards of toxic metals leaching into coastal and
surface waters from old mine sites on the Blue Hill peninsula;
and special forums and conferences such as the 2002 Gulf of
Maine Coastal Forum, which MERI recently convened in Blue
Hill. This multi-sector Forum brought together more than 200
experts and citizens from the region to examine the health
of the coastal environment, and will lead to a “State
of the Gulf Summit” in 2004. MERI will be a lead organization
in that Summit, which will provide the first region-wide assessment
of the state of the Gulf of Maine in 13 years.
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