Improving Understanding of Science in Port Clyde
- Melissa Waterman
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
It’s a long drive down Route 131 to reach the fishing town of Port Clyde. Once there you must wind your way off on a side road toward the famous Marshall Point Lighthouse to discover the Herring Gut Coastal Science Center. Once you open the door, however, there’s no question that the trip was worth it. The bright rooms and bubbling aquaponics lab are designed for hands-on learning among children and adults.
Sarah Oktay is its executive director. Oktay began in November 2023 after working as executive director of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass. She is an enthusiastic proponent of science education. “My mission in life is to help people understand science. It is imperative,” she said.
Herring Gut was founded by Phyllis Wyeth, the wife of artist Jamie Wyeth, in 1999. Wyeth purchased a small piece of property above the harbor with the goal of teaching local children about aquaculture and marine conservation. Port Clyde’s harbor was once known as Herring Gut because of the herring schools that traveled through the area each summer.
For many years, St. George students came to the small saltwater lab on the property to learn the basics of shellfish aquaculture. They even started a business, Teal Cove Shellfish Hatchery. Later students learned about aquaponics, a system in which the waste from fish [tilapia] provides nutrients for hydroponically grown plants, which in turn results in purified water.
The foundational idea expressed throughout Herring Gut’s educational programs is that science is for everyone.
“There’s something here that will excite them, something that they can envision themselves doing. Because everyone is a scientist,” Oktay said. “Our programs often involve the whole family. Having parents participate in programs with their kids shows that adults value science. Plus, it reminds the parents of themselves when they were young.”
The organization offers professional development for Maine teachers as well.
“Teachers have a place to stay and collaborate with other teachers,” Oktay said. “We have a turnkey system to introduce science subjects into the classroom. That has allowed us to reach into ten counties throughout the state.”
Fresh to Salt: Flowing Together is a hands-on, place-based program for middle school students based on the students’ particular watershed. The program blends classroom study with outdoor experiences, such as studying the ecology of a local stream. Students collect benthic macroinvertebrates, analyze the organisms, and then draw a conclusion about the stream’s water quality.
As important as the actual training and equipment that the teachers receive is the continuing connection Herring Gut cultivates with them. “We touch base with teachers three or four times each year through Virtual Swims [online meetings among the teachers]. It creates long term relationships, a real peer-to-peer situation,” Oktay explained.
Herring Gut educators use art as another route toward scientific understanding. Project Sturgeon Bride, a collaborative project between local artist Julie Crane and Herring Gut staff took the story of the endangered Atlantic sturgeon to explore marine ecology, climate change, and science communication. St. George eighth grade students studied the anadromous sturgeon’s migratory life cycle, from its birth in freshwater to adult life at sea and return to freshwater to spawn. Through the Herring Gut program, students analyzed NASA data to look at changes in ocean surface temperature, salinity, pH, and sea level over time and how these changes could affect the sturgeon’s survival. In the final component of the program the students painted 3-D printed plastic scutes, the bony, armor-like plates along the sturgeon’s back, to fasten to a 12-foot Atlantic sturgeon model created by Crane and Herring Gut staff.
Oktay continues to find new ways to help foster a greater understanding of the marine world and the scientific process. Herring Gut collaborates with the Maine Ocean Leadership Team, the Maine Science Consortium, and other science associations throughout the state. There are plans to increase science programming using the adjacent lobster pound and aquaculture building Herring Gut purchased in 2010.
“We want to increase understanding of science right now. I think we are doing an incredible job helping kids understand science and their role in the world,” Oktay said.