Empowering Maine's next generation of maritime stewards with the tools, mentors, and a community network needed to thrive in a changing world.
Overview
As the oceans, ecosystems and shorelines change with ever increasing speed, the next generation of maritime stewards including our fishermen, scientists, aquaculturists, educators and decision-makers, need access to the education that allows our community to adapt and respond to the world’s surprises and opportunities. Imagine a completely transformed hands-on education that meets today’s kids where they are, then realize this is the education of our ancestors.
EMSP students present their project on scallop aquaculture at the Maine Fishermen's Forum, March 2024.
Updates
The Challenge
Connection to the environment plus real life and maritime skills can be difficult to acquire with traditional public education models, yet these are the very skills which lie at the core of individual choice to engage with society, and pursuit of a meaningful career. Our youth want a chance to contribute and “make a difference” in this world, which has an inspirational effect and provides hope for a vibrant future. For the communities of coastal and downeast Maine, real life skills have been passed on for generations through hands-on learning, apprenticeships, with the passing of local ecological knowledge through oral traditions, on the water training, and family businesses. Finding modern approaches that build on this heritage is vital.
The Opportunity
The Eastern Maine Skippers Program propels this ancestral learning model forward to meet today’s students where they are and complements the work of the public schools in Downeast Maine by providing an exciting and tailored experiential learning toolkit that keeps kids in school and exploring. EMSP staff forge the connection between schools, students, and the community in which they live, with curricula, topics, and passion projects that are relevant to them and today’s needs. EMSP staff foster an educator network, and individualized approaches that support the teachers, and the students alike.
Each year, up to as many as one hundred students in grades 9-12 are provided with safety-at-sea and drill conductor training.
Our Aim & Approach
Implemented in nine high schools across 200 miles of coastal eastern Maine, EMSP offers access to maritime and environmental education for kids of all backgrounds, including fishing and non-fishing families. Each year, up to as many as one hundred students in grades 9-12 are first provided with safety-at-sea and drill conductor training, exposing them to the realities of maritime emergency response, and how to respond to an increasingly wet and flooded world.
Students further engage with real-world complex challenges requiring multiple perspectives to arrive at innovative solutions. Students research, develop and present effective solutions to an audience of practitioners and adults, and learn to convey their message through public speaking. Students receive in total more than 100-hours of combined education that covers topics in marine ecology, marine policy, business, as well as safety & navigation. Mentors in the community volunteer their support to students, as they enter the workforce.
EMSP is unlike any program in Maine, and for over 12-years has been preparing Maine’s next generation for the rapidly changing business, science, political and fishing environments of the 21st Century.
EMSP Coordinators
Kimberley and Matt Larsen have joined the team to lead the delivery of the highly collaborative Eastern Maine Skippers Program (EMSP). They bring a very unique understanding of the EMSP program to their new role, along with a wealth of experience in working with students, fishing communities, and the inner workings of the public education system. They taught at Deer Isle-Stonington High School until their retirement in 2017. Kimberley is a former English teacher and Matt taught PE and Health, and served as the school’s Athletic Director for 33 years. They have been lobstering together on their boat the “Sunshine Daydream” since 1993.
Have questions? Interested in learning more? Email them at: emsp@coastalfisheries.org
Funders
Bar Harbor Bank and Trust • Center for Disease Control (CDC) • Farm Credit East • Fisher Charitable Foundation • James & Betty Jacobs Family Charitable Trust • Leonard and Mildred Ferguson Foundation • Machias Savings Bank • Maine Community Foundation – Brookman Charitable Fund • Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund • Seafood Economic Accelerator (SEA) Maine • Seth Sprague Educational & Charitable Foundation • The Hudson Foundation • The Marr-Anderson Family Foundation • The Simmons Foundation