In his classroom at the Edna Drinkwater School in Northport, John Van Dis asks questions before he knows their answers. It’s an unusual approach for a teacher to take, but for a science teacher, it makes sense. Van Dis believes his grade 6 and 7 students should learn the way scientists learn—through experimentation. And that science is so grounded in…

“Predictably unpredictable.” That’s my new answer for people who ask, in the summer, what it is like living on an island in the winter. I used to say “quiet,” which…

Cormorant Time: A Madman’s Journal. Poems Written in a Time of Fever by John Wulp. Camden, Maine: Philip Conkling & Associates, 2016. 190 pp. “Can one man have been a…

There’s a lot of work to be done before it opens its doors, but Eric Jergenson likes to point out that the Maine Ocean School already exists. No, it’s not…

Another Maine island community moved to secure a high-speed internet future when Cranberry Isles voters supported a plan to borrow up to $1.2 million to establish a broadband network at…

A circus arts school recently formed in Biddeford will bring classes to the coast this summer. The Sellam Circus School, founded by Sellam El Ouahabi and Amity Stoddard, will offer…

Sustaining economic vitality while maintaining small-town character is an ongoing struggle for Maine’s coastal communities. In the Boothbay region, this dynamic has its own flavor, in part because the towns…

I hate March. Someone described February as the two-month period between the end of January and the beginning of March, a completely unfair accusation. February is downright charming compared with…

The Island Institute’s economic development programming focuses on the idea that interlinked, strong and diverse businesses will make island and remote coastal communities not only sustainable, but help them thrive.…

Last year saw another record-setting catch, both in pounds and dollar value, for the Maine lobster fishery. The numbers, announced by the state’s Department of Marine Resources at the March…