When Jonah Yaffe ’26 of Dallas got a serious concussion this spring, his activities were immediately limited. Luckily, he had a low-impact but very sweet new hobby that took up enormous amounts of time: boiling maple tree sap into syrup.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” Yaffe said. “I could just sit there. It’s a very passive activity.”

And Yaffe had a lot of sap that he needed to boil. This past winter semester, Yaffe and the �ֲ���ý Maple Syrup Club earned a �ֲ���ý Green Grant to bolster the club’s on-campus sugaring efforts. They produced seven caramel-colored gallons of maple syrup from �ֲ���ý trees and with �ֲ���ý people. 

Through the annual Green Grants program, the college offers grants of up to $2,000 to campus sustainability projects led by students, faculty, or staff. In addition to Yaffe’s project, four other projects earned Green Grants this year:

• An effort to revamp the college’s green bike fleet led by EcoReps — students who work to promote environmentally responsible behavior on campus — Liza Bell ’26 of Putney, Vt., and Greta Hendrickson ’28 of Duluth, Minn.
• A collaboration with the on-campus cafe Le Ronj to offer discounts for students who bring disposable cups, led by the �ֲ���ý Environmental Coalition
• An initiative to increase recycling education and materials around campus led by EcoReps Caroline Mayer ’26 of Wolfeboro, N.H., and Sarah Smith ’26 of Severna Park, Md.
• An initiative to install native trees around the �ֲ���ý Garden to prevent wind and noise pollution by Riley Baker ’26 of Northfield, Ill., and Yaffe

“What’s so unique about the Green Grants program is that it puts the stewardship of campus sustainability in the hands of the students themselves,” said Assistant Director of Sustainability Tom Twist. “They are empowered to be the project managers for their own sustainability ideas, and to see a project through from its original spark of an idea, through all the detailed minutiae, to its final completion. Having the students shepherd a project through this entire arc transforms not only the campus, but the student as well.”

The idea for the Maple Syrup Club originated from Yaffe’s work as a student groundskeeper and EcoRep. Yaffe, an environmental studies major, had spent many hours working in the �ֲ���ý Garden — a.k.a the PLOT — and began wondering if it would be possible to tap the garden’s dozens of maple trees. 

When he posed the question to Facility Services staff, whom he’d come to know well across his years working outside, they encouraged him to pursue the idea. Yaffe joined Jeremy Lavertu, a carpenter with Facility Services, for a University of Maine workshop on tapping maple trees to learn the basics of sugaring, then founded the club with Angus Carter ’25 during the 2024-25 academic year.

That first winter, the Maple Syrup Club collected 10 gallons of sap from 10 trees in the PLOT. But the club lacked the funds they needed to purchase the proper equipment for filtration and boiling, key steps of the sugaring process that turn sap, which is 98 percent water and 2 percent sugar, into syrup. Yaffe had to complete the boiling process in Vermont with a friend’s home evaporator, a wood stove that can filter and boil large quantities of sap.

Those 10 gallons of sap boiled down into two mason jars worth of syrup. The experience was fun, but Yaffe had his eye on something bigger for the following winter that would not only generate more syrup but also bring together students, faculty, and staff.

To achieve that goal, he’d need proper technology and machinery, hence his application for a Green Grant. He used the awarded funds to purchase an evaporator, taps for the trees, and buckets to collect sap. After extensive conversations with Facility Services and the City of Lewiston about safely installing the evaporator, the club installed the stove outside of Cutten Maintenance Center. 

Haskel McKee-Seegal ’29 of Honolulu, a friend of Yaffe’s from the Orange Whip Ultimate frisbee team, became Yaffe’s co-conspirator in this season’s sugaring efforts. The two of them, with the help of a dozen or so other dedicated club members, collected 180 gallons of sap from 30 maple trees behind Leahey Field, which they stored in metal drums outside of Cutten.

“The Green Grant really helped us get off the ground,” Yaffe said. “We couldn’t have done anything without it.”

Equally vital were community members. Mike Walsh, a project manager with Facility Services, helped students with logistical and scientific components. Having first learned how to tap trees as a Boy Scout growing up in Maine, Walsh now produces gallons of syrup each year on his 50-acre property in Poland, Maine. He donated 150 gallons of his own sap to the students, nearly doubling their supply. 

“I had extra this year,” Walsh said. “I could have boiled it myself, but they were having such a good time. I said, ‘You know what? I will just load it up in the truck and bring it in.’”

Wood for the �ֲ���ý evaporator came from Walsh and grounds and maintenance workers Ian Brownlie, Amy Ray, and Nate Calden. Projects like this help demonstrate to students the vital, sometimes unseen role that staff play on campus, Walsh said.

“We have a lot of our own talents, and a lot of us want to give back to the student base,” Walsh said. 

Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of the Faculty Mike Rocque donated several gallons from trees tapped around his home in Litchfield, Maine. Sugaring was new to him, and he enjoyed learning alongside the students and staff.

“I really like that part of engaging in the �ֲ���ý community, where people aren’t in their silos, but we’re all together and learn about what people do across the different areas on the campus,” Rocque said.

After running those 300-plus gallons of pure tree sap through another piece of equipment called a reverse osmosis system, which served as a filter, the students were left with about 150 gallons of concentrated sap. Then, they boiled on the evaporator. And boiled, until all that sap was distilled into seven gallons of pure maple syrup.

“Haskel and I spent many a night in the very cold sitting by the wood stove, boiling sap,” Yaffe said.

Yaffe and McKee-Seegal, an earth and climate sciences major, put in the most hours beside the evaporator, but they weren’t alone. Other club members took shifts, and Facility Services staff often stopped by.

“They were all super, super interested, super excited to talk with us and learn about the process,” McKee-Seegal said.

In addition to bringing together the �ֲ���ý community, another one of the club’s goals was to help students engage with Maine’s nature and culture through hands-on learning. 

It worked.“You feel a different way after doing something with your hands all day rather than doing something on your computer,” Jaffe said

Each club member who spent time at the evaporator went home with syrup. Then, during the Short Term Earth Day celebration, Yaffe and McKee-Seegal gave away Commons ice cream cones drizzled with their very own �ֲ���ý maple syrup. The students also gave a couple of jars to Facility Services staff, who stored their stash in the Cutten breakroom for sweetening coffee. 

“That was one of my favorite parts, giving away the syrup and saying, ‘This came from �ֲ���ý trees,’” Yaffe said. 

After graduating in May, Yaffe headed to Hiram, Maine, for his summer job working at Ossipee Valley Music Festival. McKee-Seegal plans to spend the winter 2027 semester abroad. But the two say that Maple Syrup Club will keep sugaring next winter under the leadership of several other club members, continuing the club’s goal of bringing together the �ֲ���ý community while learning about Maine’s nature and culture. 

Hadley Blodgett ’26 of Buckfield, Maine, spends a lot of time thinking about just that — time.

In a laboratory in Carnegie Science Hall, as she conducts research for her senior thesis, Blodgett gazes over 7,000 years of history condensed into a sediment core extracted from a lake in northern Greenland. As a double major in earth and climate sciences and music, with a minor in religious studies, Blodgett enjoys reflecting on the way that time has constructed and altered her fields of study. Sometimes, when the immensity of the sediment sample’s past hits her, she thinks, “How am I holding this?”

“To think about the scale of what’s in front of me is just kind of crazy,” Blodgett says.

How exactly did sediment buried deep beneath Arctic waters find its way to the surface, then to �ֲ���ý? The story crosses oceans and icebergs, tundras and deserts, but connects to �ֲ���ý through Blodgett’s thesis advisor, Associate Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences Nick Balascio.

As a paleoclimatologist, Balascio studies how Earth’s climate system has changed across millennia, primarily through analyzing lake sediment cores, which are layers of mud, dirt, and organic material extracted from the bottom of lakes in long tubes.

“Those lakes are natural history books that record what’s going on around the watershed of the lake as well as within the lake itself,” Balascio says. 

In 2022, Balascio helped launch the Wandel Dal Project, a multi-national scientific effort investigating climate conditions of ancient Greenland, with support from a National Science Foundation grant. The project is studying Wandel Dal — a remote, uninhabited arctic desert valley less than 500 miles from the North Pole in Greenland’s Peary Land. Beneath its icy facade, Peary Land is a wealth of Greenlandic history, the one-time home of the island’s first people who crossed into the region from northern Canada. 

Over the past 4,500 years, Peary Land was inhabited and then abandoned by three different groups of indigenous people. The Wandel Dal scientists hypothesize that migration in and out of the region corresponded with climate fluctuations — people occupied the area in warmer climate periods, then left when the climate began to cool again and the area became more difficult to live in because of dwindling natural resources. 

“These are people with stone tool technology living in a pretty harsh and foreboding environment,” Balascio says.

By understanding Peary Land’s past climate contexts, scientists will gain a better overall understanding of how changing climate conditions affect the Arctic, which is already warming about four times faster than average global warming rates under anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change.

“There is very little coverage of this high Arctic region in terms of what we know about the past climate history,” Balascio says. “It’s right at the margins of the Greenland ice sheet, so understanding the sensitivity to climate change is really important.” 

In the summer of 2024, Balascio and colleagues traveled to Peary Land to collect lake sediment cores. They flew to Svalbard, Norway, then chartered a plane to eastern Greenland, flew in a prop plane to Wandel Dal, and finally rode in a helicopter to their research site, where stone tools and tent sites made by ancient humans still littered the barren landscape.

“Working in these extremely remote and remarkable landscapes is inspiring as an earth scientist, to see the natural beauty that the earth has,” Balascio says.

It was the end of July, the beginning of the brief and only time of year when Wandel Dal’s lakes are not frozen, a necessity for obtaining lake sediment cores. Balascio and colleagues set up coring platforms on inflatable rafts and guided large, heavy tubes called corers overboard into the 200-foot-deep lakes to collect six-meter long sediment samples.

The sediment cores, several of which are now stored in �ֲ���ý’ core storage facility in Carnegie’s basement, have been a fantastic resource for students, Balascio says. In addition to Blodgett, Fletcher Libre ’26 of Alta, Utah, and Zach Van Dusen ’25 also used the cores for their senior theses in earth and climate sciences. The samples “are very precious,” Balascio says. “I feel fortunate that we have those here at �ֲ���ý and that �ֲ���ý students can literally put their hands on these really remarkable records and learn about an environment that they might never travel to but can experience in some way.” 

While Blodgett hasn’t been to the Wandel Dal region, she did have the opportunity to visit Greenland during a trip with Balascio to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, for Greenland Science Week in November 2025. The trip was funded by Balascio’s NSF grant, which includes funds for supporting student research and mentorship. Blodgett was so excited by the opportunity that she hardly allowed herself to believe it was real until she was on the way to Greenland. 

“This is just too cool to happen,” Blodgett thought to herself. “And then, I was on a plane.”

Presenting her thesis research during the conference and at a community outreach event, Blodgett contributed new scientific discoveries that could have implications far beyond her own project. 

When she began her thesis research on the sediment cores in the summer of 2025, Blodgett was surprised by how clearly she could tell time from changes in the sample’s composition. The sediment follows a fairly consistent pattern — denser sediment for what were likely warmer climate periods, less dense sediment for cooler periods — until the top four centimeters.

Blodgett initially thought she was doing something wrong when she began analyzing that top section and had trouble pulling out a “plug,” a sample of sediment removed for detailed analysis. She took a closer look and observed thick, laminated layers of sediment building up the top and newest portion, strikingly different from the millimeter-sized, less dense layers of sediment that comprised the rest of the sample.

“Something in the climate is causing the environment to react in such a way that it makes this sediment deposit in a different way than it has for the entire rest of the record,” Blodgett says. 

She’s hypothesizing that this top portion of the sample is reflecting changes caused by anthropogenic climate change.

“I don’t know why [sediment cores] fascinate me, but I just really enjoy working with them,” Blodgett says. “Before I started all this, I had no clue what they were. I’m always open to doing new things.”

Trying new things has defined Blodgett’s �ֲ���ý career. She arrived on campus planning to major in history but pivoted to earth and climate sciences after taking the Short Term course “Soil Geography of New England” and realizing how much she enjoyed working with soil — and the way that this work allowed her to discover more about the Maine land she grew up exploring.

“I definitely have an appreciation for just how important [the land] can be culturally and the need to treat it with respect,” Blodgett says. 

This idea of respect for the land and awareness of its value to its inhabitants, past and present, is a central tenet of the Wandel Dal Project. As a cradle of the country’s civilization, Peary Land is of great cultural significance to the Greenlandic people. The Wandel Dal scientists are supporting a Greenland National Museum initiative to rename the region — currently named for American explorer Robert Peary — to “Inutoqqat Nunaat,” meaning “land of the ancient people” in Greenlandic. A team of archaeologists are also a part of the Wandel Dal Project and investigating the human history of northern Greenland. 

When he began his career as a paleoclimatologist, Balascio wasn’t particularly focused on the human aspect of the landscapes he was studying. But, over time, as he began collaborating with archaeologists to study Viking settlements in Norway or the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island, where human impact on the land is undeniable, Balascio became more and more interested in understanding how human history is interlaced with climate history. Working with the archaeologists in Wandel Dal in particular “became a very enriching experience and gave me a new perspective on this field of study that I had been working on previously for a decade,” Balascio says.

During Greenland Science Week, while chatting with scientists and archaeologists, and showing eager kids artifacts from Wandel Dal, Blodgett, too, was reminded of the key role that people and culture play in her field.

“You get so disconnected from the ‘people part’ sometimes in climate science, even though people are such an important part of it,” Blodgett says.

The trip to Nuuk was also an opportunity for Blodgett to field advice from scientists about graduate school and research as she prepares for life after �ֲ���ý. Balascio has been an attentive mentor in that sense as well, Blodgett says. While guiding her through her thesis research, he’s helped her explore opportunities at �ֲ���ý and beyond. 

“No matter where I end up after May,” Blodgett says, “I know for certain that the trajectory of my career has been changed because of the guidance shown to me by Professor Balascio and so many essential people in the �ֲ���ý community.”

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Numbers 2524995 to �ֲ���ý College and 2126047 to College of William & Mary. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

From inside of her dorm room, Grace Thomas ’26 of Bethesda, Md., heard a clinking outside of her door. She peeked into the hallway to find a trash bag dumped on her doorstep. A fragrance drifted up from the bag, which was full of empty metal cans.

They were exactly what she needed.

For months, Thomas and Annie Robinson ’26 of Atlanta, Ga., had been campaigning friends — and friends of friends — across campus for their leftover cans and metal bottle caps. This latest delivery comprised leftovers from a birthday party for a friend’s boyfriend’s football teammate.

After meticulously washing out each can in an Olin Arts Center sink, Robinson and Thomas combined the cans with several other kinds of waste to form their winning design for the 20th annual Trashion Show, held on Nov. 19 in Alumni Gymnasium. The show takes place annually after Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events’ Harvest Dinner, a fall-themed meal in Commons open to the public and featuring live music and horse-drawn carriage rides across campus. 

Trashion invites �ֲ���ý students, faculty, and staff to construct runway pieces out of trash with the goal of bringing awareness to the amount of waste produced on a college campus — even one that prides itself on having achieved a carbon neutral standard of sustainability in 2019, when �ֲ���ý was only one of seven colleges in the country to have achieved that standard. 

The �ֲ���ý student EcoReps organize the show. All designers provide a brief description of and backstory for their pieces, which student emcees read aloud to the audience during the show. A panel of judges — this year made up of Associate Director of Culinary & Retail Operations and Executive Chef Michael Staffenski, Associate Professor of German Jakub Kazecki, Campus Safety Supervisor Mark Cayer, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Christine Martinez, and Associate Dean for International Student Programs James Reese from Global Education — generate some light competition among entrants. 

Thomas and Robinson went into the event as defending champions, having won last year with a ballgown made of rolled-up paper from academic readings, co-designed by both students and modeled by Thomas.

“Now there’s expectations for ourselves,” Thomas said two days before the competition, as the two were crushing cans and cutting strips of cardboard for this year’s design. “The pressure is on.”

The designers started thinking about this year’s entry the day after last year’s Trashion Show. They wanted to make something completely different from last year’s ballgown, which was monochromatic and chic, so they spent hours scrolling Pinterest and sketching possible designs. Thomas suggested incorporating metal bottle caps, and the outline of the outfit formed around that medium.

The final design featured a denim skirt made of old blue jeans, overlaid with ribbons of paper and strips of turquoise hammock fabric strung through about one hundred crushed cans, all held up by a belt also made from the hammock. The top was made from multicolor cardboard, plastic, and fabric woven together and adorned with bottle caps. They completed the look with a wig made from strips of cardboard and hammock fabric and a necklace of bottle caps. The plan was that Thomas would model, but they made Robinson a pair of matching bottle cap earrings to wear backstage.

Each material tells the story of a relationship: a friend’s torn jeans in the skirt, fabric pulled from another friend’s ripped hammock that hung outside Page Hall their freshman year, cans from the football team, and more. 

“We’ve had so many people’s trash and help,” Robinson said. “I’ll get texts like, ‘Oh, do you still need bottle caps from people?’ I don’t remember talking to them about this, but they’re happy to help.”

Many of the bottle caps came from a surprising secret stash. Robinson was visiting a craft-loving friend who lives in Turner Hall and happened to ask if she had any spare caps sitting around. The friend pointed Robinson to the crevice between the heater and the wall, where a collection of bottle caps had apparently been growing for years. Previous occupants had created the cache, Robinson’s friend said, for no apparent reason except amusement.

“What is this pile for, if not for Trashion?” Robinson thought to herself. She grabbed chopsticks and scissors to get into the space, which was too small for her hand, and dug out every bottle cap.

Thomas and Robinson constructed their design in Olin Arts Center’s room 321, the same number, coincidentally, as the duo’s freshman year dorm room in Parker Hall. As new �ֲ���ýies, they bonded over making arts and crafts and had a shared wall between their beds that they decorated with art and ephemera from “anything that happened together,” Robinson said.

When Robinson, who is a double major in economics and gender and sexuality studies, learned about the Trashion Show, she knew that she and Thomas, a studio art major, would make a great team.

This year, even though they’re both swamped with thesis projects, they still made time to meet in Olin to craft, their miscellaneous cardboard and fabric scraps spread out across the studio floor as they transformed trash into �ֲ���ý couture.

“Do I look like a little kid playing dress up?” Thomas asked as she tried on the cardboard base she had constructed for the wig. She was engineering a way to create bangs that would hold their shape and not fall in her face. She landed on little strips of cardboard that curled upward so that she could safely see the Trashion stage.

“Visibility is crucial,” Thomas said.

Two days later, against the backdrop of colorful lights, Thomas modeled the outfit to a cheering crowd of Trashion attendees. The clink of the dozens of cans adorning her skirt complemented the music played by student DJ Djibril Diaw ’27 of Mount Hernon, Mass. For the second year in a row, Thomas and Robinson won first place for their design, earning a $75 gift card to Forage Market in Lewiston.

Students from Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read’s first-year seminar “Family Stories” earned third place honors at the Trashion Show for their design featuring paper birds, fans, snowflakes, and airplanes, constructed with recycled paper from paper mills in central Maine and modeled by Finn Merrick ’29 of Easton, Md.

In second place was Read himself, who modeled an academic gown made from an antique table cloth and adorned with fallen yellow leaves from the beloved ginkgo tree outside of Carnegie Science Hall. Read and his longtime partner in Trashion creations, Kerry O’Brien, retired assistant dean in the Dean of the Faculty office, co-designed the piece. As he walked, Read threw ginkgo leaves into the air and around the runway. 

Among the other elaborate designs was another leafy piece by seniors Elle Stogel, Caroline Mayer, Vyshu Viju, and Ellie Millard, and modeled by Millard. That dress was constructed from shredded paper, tissues, and real maple leaves. The designers aimed to draw awareness to key environmental issues in Maine, including recycling bottles and cans, but most crucial to the dress itself, the ways in which climate change is already threatening the state’s maple sugar industry. 

“We knew that this is something big that’s going on in Maine right now, and we wanted to advertise it,” Millard said.

After most of the audience had left, ginkgo leaves from Read’s costume lingered on the stage. They fit in nicely with the autumn decor around Alumni Gym, including a fall-themed photo backdrop behind pumpkins and a stationary four-wheeler — where a few students sat to watch the show — and tables laden with desserts like Baked Alaska and red velvet cupcakes. 

Gazing across the ginkgo leaves after the show, Robinson reflected on her final fall at �ֲ���ý.

“It’s fall confetti,” Robinson said. “It’s a great final celebration of the last time I’m going to see that ginkgo tree outside of Carnegie.”

Additional student designers and models comprised:

• Mary Parker ’27, Hazel Krinsky ’27, Arnav Panigrahi ’27, and Surta Shah ’28, who modeled pieces crafted from surgical blue wrap by Partners for World Health
• Shay Campolongo ’26, who designed and modeled a skirt and shirt made with over 200 film slides
• Campbell MacDonald ’27 who modeled and designed a cardboard suit
• Ava Teleki ’29 who modeled and designed an outfit from yogurt and milk containers
• Alessandra Williams ’29, who co-designed and modeled the �ֲ���ý Environmental Coalition’s design made from a Halloween costume and candy wrappers
• Sophia Lebeau Toung ’28, who modeled an outfit fashioned from candy and snack wrappers, co-designed with Ella Albright ’28
• Daisy O’Dwyer ’26, who modeled and designed an outfit featuring a shirt of Dum Dum lollipop wrappers and a skirt from a trash bag
• Mikayla Ferguson ’28, who designed and modeled a dress from scraps of old t-shirts
• Erik Lindholm ’27, who modeled and co-designed an outfit by the �ֲ���ý EcoReps, made of materials including compost bags, newspapers, and a bike tube

Watch the full Trashion video below:

Perched on the edge of a boat gliding smoothly out of sunny Northeast Harbor, Maine, Tess Black ’20 commands the attention of the dozens of visitors to Acadia National Park seated around her.

“Today, we are heading out into the great harbor of Mount Desert Island,” Black says. “This is one of thousands of harbors you will find here off of the coast of Maine.”

She is dressed in the muted green uniform emblematic of National Park System rangers, complete with a flat-brimmed hat that she holds securely to her head against the September sea breeze.

It’s Black’s ninth season working as a park ranger and her second in Acadia National Park, where she gives guided boat tours, leads hikes, and greets visitors.

Aboard the Sea Princess boat tour that she leads each Tuesday morning, she’s part naturalist, part tour guide, and part comedian, directing attendees where to look using clock positions.

“Who here has seen an analog clock before?” Black says, fielding laughter (and nods) from the day’s audience of mostly older adults, plus one baby. “Very good. The front of the boat is going to be our 12 o’clock.”

Her passengers likely can’t tell that public speaking is not something that comes naturally to Black, but rather a skill she’s honed while working at parks around the country.

After learning to love the outdoors at summer camp in Michigan, Black, who grew up in Los Angeles, was determined to find a job that allowed her to “spend as much time as possible outside.” She got her start interning in Zion National Park before her junior year at �ֲ���ý, where she majored in environmental studies with a minor in education.

For her internship, which was funded by �ֲ���ý’ Center for Purposeful Work, Black worked in Zion’s interpretation division, comprised of the rangers who greet visitors and offer educational programming. 

“This is a great example of the Purposeful Work model in action,” says Allen Delong, the senior associate dean and director for graduate and professional school advising at the Center for Purposeful Work. “We work with students as they explore their strengths and interests on campus in leadership roles, and off-campus through experiential opportunities like this one, all of which informs their future choices.”

In Zion, Black’s role included giving public talks about geology and park history.

“I was really afraid of public speaking at that time,” Black says. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ And then I realized I didn’t have a choice, so I just bit the bullet.” 

With practice, Black overcame her fear and became dedicated to sharing the beauty of the National Park System with visitors. Since graduating from �ֲ���ý in 2020, she has consistently worked seasonal jobs as a ranger, moving about every six months to work in Acadia, Yellowstone, Death Valley, Canyonlands, Denali, and Saguaro National Parks. 

In Canyonlands and Denali, Black was a backcountry park ranger, spending days at a time backpacking alone through the wilderness to advise hikers, issue permits, and occasionally conduct search-and-rescue operations.

“That is truly the job,” Black says. “You get paid to go backpacking.”

Despite its perks, a park ranger’s job is not without the occasional brush with the elements. Severe flooding closed Yellowstone and Death Valley while Black was working at each respective park. She was working in Denali’s Backcountry Information Center during the 2025 Riley Fire, which burned more than 400 acres of land.

“I was blankly staring out the window, and then my eyes adjusted,” Black says. “I realized, ‘That hillside’s on fire.’”

Thankfully, the fires and floods didn’t harm her, and neither did the curious bear who approached her tent as she was camping alone in Canyonlands. From inside her tent, Black heard what she thought was a person creeping suspiciously close and clutched her satellite phone, prepared to contact park headquarters.

“Every step it made, the ground beneath me would reverberate,” Black says. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, this is bigger than a person.’”

She made noise to ward off the bear, and it quickly left, leaving but a few pawprints outside her tent.

After spending four years out west, enmeshed in that landscape, where she might be lugging gallons of water into the desert or floating down the Colorado River, in May, Black returned to her favorite national park: Acadia.

“It felt like it was time to come back,” Black says.

When she decided that she wanted to return, Black reached out to Kathy Grant, a supervisory park ranger in Acadia who had been Black’s supervisor during the summer 2021 season. 

“She taught me kind of everything I know,” Black says. “She is the big reason that I am the employee for the parks and the person I am today.”

Grant quickly saw Black’s potential for leadership and success as a ranger, she says. She welcomed Black back to Acadia with open arms and even promoted her, allowing Black to take more responsibility in planning her park programming and expanding future job opportunities. 

“I continued to follow her career as she took on a variety of roles in parks across the country,” Grant says. “Adapting to a new park every six months is not easy — it demands resilience, initiative, and a strong capacity to learn quickly. Tess consistently demonstrated those qualities.”

Black has spent the majority of this summer season confidently leading large crowds through outdoor programs, like the nearly three-hour boat tour out of Northeast Harbor. As the Sea Princess boat glides between islands, Black shares lessons she wrote herself on park history, lighthouses, geology, and marine life.

The tours are often sold out, and attendees on this late summer day engage closely, peppering Black with questions and comments.

She pauses to point out wildlife, like a perched osprey and a seal peering up through blue waters. Black calls her audience’s attention to a moose statue — telling them it is likely the only moose visitors will see in Acadia, which, to many tourists’ surprise, is not in the animals’ natural range.

Black doesn’t take herself too seriously, especially when she’s working to get the attention of kids onboard. She makes references to beloved animated show SpongeBob SquarePants, which was inspired by writer Stephen Hillenburg’s time as a cook at a restaurant in Islesford, where the boat tour makes a stop.

In fact, a stuffed SpongeBob toy is “trapped” in a lobster trap hanging from the boat’s ceiling. Black uses the trap and a bright red lobster prop — matching her dangle lobster earrings — to demonstrate how lobsters are caught, as real lobster boats idle in the water nearby.

“Being a park ranger is silly in a good way,” Black says. “I’ve become a lot less serious over the years, while still maintaining professionalism.”

The boat navigates between colorful buoys and sailboats to stop at Little Cranberry Island. Visitors walk around and browse through the island’s history museum, giving Black a moment to rest her voice before resuming her program on the ride back.

Black, now with years of public speaking experience, is quick to improvise and read her audience, knowing when to add a joke and when to stick to the facts based on how attendees are responding. Sometimes, however, she sticks her neck out for a laugh with a corny joke, and no one responds. Learning to brush that off is just part of the job, she says.

“I’ve learned that I can do a lot of really uncomfortable things and be okay,” Black says. “It’s really okay to try new things and put yourself on the line. I don’t fear being embarrassed anymore. I have to make myself vulnerable for this job, and I’ve embraced that over the years.”

When she’s not leading a boat tour or hike, Black works at the visitor center information desk. Here, she gets to know some of the youngest visitors through the Junior Ranger program, which rewards kids who take a pledge to keep themselves and the parks safe with a badge denoting Junior Ranger status. 

“Those interactions are some of my favorites because those are the future stewards of these parks,” Black says. “One day, they’re going to be adults, and they’re going to have, hopefully, the same excitement about helping to protect these places.”

In October, Black will leave Acadia for her next adventure in the Virgin Islands National Park. She envisions herself continuing to work in the park system for the foreseeable future, educating visitors on the wonder of America’s natural beauty.

On a balmy Friday morning in mid-July, a research team of five from �ֲ���ý scrambled across the slippery rocks of Cape Neddick, searching the rockweed-coated landscape for the shiny, dark, blue-purplish shellfish previously so emblematic of Maine’s beaches.

Live mussels once seemed to cling to every rock or wharf. Their shells littered patches of the shoreline and would crunch underfoot. Going barefoot felt risky. 

But for decades, the number of native mussels has been dwindling. Over the past 50 years, Maine’s blue mussel populations have decreased by about 60%, according to a . 

The research team — Justin Baumann, an assistant professor of environmental studies, and his four �ֲ���ý summer interns — had adjusted their expectations accordingly, but still, they found fewer blue mussels in the intertidal zone than anticipated. 

Baumann and students hope their research will offer fresh insight into the cause of this disappearance. Scientists suspect that the decrease in blue mussels is due in part to increased predation from invasive green crab populations, overfishing, ocean acidification from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and warming waters caused by climate change.

The whether the decline is more of a retreat to colder waters, andto the changing ecosystem. Baumann and the �ֲ���ý students are approaching their research from the hypothesis that the population decline is primarily correlated with rising water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which is heating up about 97% faster than most ocean waters due to climate change. Ideally, their research might shed light on how the mussels could adapt to rising temperatures.

From Quoddy Head State Park to Cape Neddick, this summer Baumann and interns Amanda Power, Amanda Jenkins, Reuven Frye, and Sophie Leight, all seniors at �ֲ���ý, have collected mussels and data from low and high intertidal areas, which will support the four students’ thesis projects — which Baumann is advising — and a years-long project for Baumann.

In the field, each researcher plays a key role. At Cape Neddick, Power, a biology major from Scottsdale, Ariz., and Leight, an environmental studies and religious studies double major from Easton, Md., began the day in the low intertidal zone — the part of the shoreline only exposed at the lowest point of the tide —  hunting for 50 live organisms for their lab experiments before water obscured the area. Some mussels easily gave way to the collectors; a few hardy mussels, attached to rocks by strong filaments called byssal threads, required a Philips head screwdriver.

“There’s a lot of wave action here,” Power said. “They’ve got to hold on really tight to not get washed away.”

The students placed the mussels into collection containers to take back to �ֲ���ý. Cooled by ocean spray, they scrambled between the water and the rocks, lapping waves filling up their boots.

“Falling and slipping around are just inevitable parts of the job,” Leight said. “But it is also fun, especially when you can make some cool discoveries while you’re searching.”

On the coast, students have found other small sea creatures interspersed between the mussels, including star fishes, sea anemones, and green crabs, the invasive, widespread predators that enjoy munching on mussels and aren’t afraid to snap at humans poking around in their homes, Power said.

“I really have enjoyed my ability to get out in the field at �ֲ���ý,” Power said. “They do that really well — lab experience, field experience. You’re not just always in the classroom.” 

Once they collected 50 mussels, the students covered the animals with handfuls of moist rockweed, a temporary coolant to keep the animals comfortable in the containers before they’re transferred to campus.

“You want to make them feel at home and less stressed,” Leight said. “Having some moisture helps with that, especially on a sunny day.”

Across the rocks, Frye, an environmental studies major from Montclair, N.J., and Jenkins, a biology major from Summit, N.J., gathered data about other organisms. They placed a quadrat, a 1-by-1 meter frame, at 10 different points in the low intertidal zone, photographing and counting the organisms within the quadrat at each step. For his thesis, Frye will be analyzing the data collected from the quadrats to identify differing variables between low and high intertidal zones, aiming to characterize the environments around the blue mussels.

In the low intertidal area, diverse life abounds, from bioluminescent algae to predatory snails that suck blue mussels straight from their shells. 

“It’s such a unique ecosystem,” Frye said. “It changes drastically twice a day, and it’s just so interesting to see these organisms adapt to that.”

Nearby, Baumann trotted around the quadrat, its white stark against the intertidal’s yellow and gray hues, on his way to his next field task.

“Don’t count me in your quadrat,” he joked. 

Between crashing waves, Baumann used a drill to install a sensor in a large rock to measure water temperature. The device is no larger than the size of a plastic water bottle cap and works via a tap-to-pay-like monitoring system: Baumann needs only to touch his phone to the area where the sensor is installed to collect its data. He’s placed these sensors in rocks all along the coast this summer, with full permission from the Department of Marine Resources. 

Ideally, the sensors gather data on temperatures for the next 15 or 20 years. But their success is dependent on the waves’ cooperation; with that morning’s rushing tides, Baumann worried that the epoxy used to hold the sensor in place would wear off.

“The ocean doesn’t really care about what we want,” Baumann said.

He installed two more sensors at the mid- and high- intertidal zones, each marked with a plastic orange tie wrapped around a metal rock-climbing anchor, the latter an idea Baumann got from Philip Dostie, a science resource technician at �ֲ���ý.

Around midday, as waters rose, the students changed roles and repeated the steps to collect the 50 more mussels and data at high tide. Here, the mussels were easier to find, though life within the white squares became more sparse, consisting mainly of barnacles and flat, black algae that a layperson could mistake for discoloration on the rocks.

After four hours in the field, the team returned to Lewiston with data and mussels in hand. The following week, they completed their final field work on Hurricane Island in Penobscot Bay before beginning their laboratory experiments.

In addition to being a staple of Maine’s marine ecosystems and seafood industry, mussels play a key role in maintaining a healthy marine environment. As filter feeders, they filter up to five gallons of seawater a day, and along with it, toxins, metals, and microplastics. Scientists can assess the health of ecosystems by measuring toxin levels in mussels.

Mussels are also foundational organisms. Like the coral in reefs or trees in a forest, mussels’ ecosystems are built around them. Their shells serve as hard substrates for other, smaller organisms to build their own homes on. “A starfish could come through here and have a great bed,” Baumann said.

Humans also take advantage of mussels; not only are the organisms an edible delicacy, but people have modeled adhesives after the super-strong byssal threads that mussels use to attach themselves to surfaces.

The animals’ disappearance would mean losing an entire layer of the intertidal ecosystem, with unknown but potentially disastrous consequences.

“I don’t know that the ecosystem is actually going to change visibly to people, but ecologically in terms of how nutrients cycle and what it looks like, it will change,” Baumann said.

Baumann wants to understand how mussels cope with the latter point and suspects that organisms respond differently to temperature changes based on their home latitudes. He chose to investigate mussels in the intertidal zone specifically because the animals already experience drastic temperature changes each day as the tide comes in and out. Their resilience may offer insight into how mussels can survive changing temperatures.

“It seems like because of the dynamic range of the ecosystem that they should have some flexibility,” Baumann says. “We think that there might be something here to how organisms can manage change really fast.”

The project is investigating this hypothesis by analyzing the temperature and ecological data collected along Maine’s coast, studying genetic differences between mussel populations living at various latitudes (i.e. the chilly waters of Quoddy Head versus the warmer waves at Cape Neddick) and different levels of the intertidal zone, measuring how mussels from different locations respond to changing water temperatures, and assessing how thermal plasticity, or an organism’s ability to adjust its tolerance for changing temperatures, varies between different mussel populations.

Though he led similar research as a visiting professor at Bowdoin, this project is Baumann’s first big foray into the world of blue mussels. His specialty is in tropical coral reef research —  specifically studying how reefs react to changing temperatures from climate change.

When he relocated to Maine, Baumann wanted to pivot his research toward local ecosystems and support longstanding research on the coastline, an area vital to Maine’s economy and culture. 

Maine needs researchers looking to answer questions about how climate change will affect coastal communities and ecosystems, Baumann explained, especially as many of the scientists conducting research on organisms like blue mussels retire. 

“I’m thinking about how ecosystems are changing due to climate change, especially ecosystems that are coastal and close to people and important for communities and livelihoods,” Baumann said. “I think that’s the ethos of the environmental studies program, the interconnectedness of everything.”

Back in Baumann’s Carnegie Hall laboratory, Leight, Power, and Jenkins conducted experiments for their thesis projects, with collaboration from Frye and Baumann. Twelve tanks of mussels line the wall of the lab’s back room, research subjects for Leight’s thermal ramping tests. During the experiments, Leight took seven mussels at a time from the tanks, placing each animal in an air-tight mason jar, all of which are then placed in a water-filled tank lined with a dishwasher rack. 

Leight then slowly decreased or increased the temperature of the water surrounding the mason jars. Sensors in each jar measure the mussels’ vital signs, noting how their oxygen levels respond to the changing temperatures. She analyzed how the mussels’ responses correlate with where they were collected — from low or high intertidal areas and from the cooler waters of Quoddy Head State Park or the warmer Cape Neddick — to determine if mussels from certain areas are more resistant to temperature changes than others and identify the warmest temperatures that mussels can survive in. 

For Power and Jenkins, the focus is mussel genetics. Together, they extracted DNA from the abductor muscles of mussels collected at various sites along the coast. Through an extensive purification process, the students isolated the DNA until they were left with pure genetic material.

For her thesis work, Power will be using the DNA samples to look at the genotype — an organism’s genetic makeup — of each mussel in her sample group. She’ll then analyze how mussel genotypes do or do not vary depending on which site the organisms were collected from.

“Genes can be expressed at different times in a mussel’s lifetime, but which genes they have are set in stone,” Power said. “I’m looking to see if the genetic makeup of the mussels is different across latitudes.”

Jenkins will compare DNA samples to determine if epigenetic changes, or changes in gene expressions, related to temperature regulation vary based on geographic location. She hypothesizes that mussels from warmer waters will have more epigenetic changes, which would allow them to withstand changing temperatures. “I’m seeing if their genome and those DNA processes can keep up with the warming temperatures in Maine, or if there’s an absolute limit where they can’t do anything,” Jenkins said. 

Conducting collaborative research, students learn how to work with others and support each other.

“There’s more flexibility in working together,” Baumann said. “You build a real strong sense of camaraderie, and you also can share knowledge and work on each other’s projects. Each one of them is in charge of their own project, but all four of them are working together toward one common goal.”

Baumann wanted to be a professor at a small liberal arts school like �ֲ���ý largely because of the opportunity to work closely with small groups of students. While guiding students through research, he’s motivated by mentorship and helping the budding scientists carve out their career paths.

“It’s a chance for me to help them really figure out what they’re trying to do next. And that’s the whole reason I’m here,” Baumann said. “It’s about helping students get the training that they need to go on and do whatever it is they want to do with their life. That’s the value.”

The mussel researchers have gotten to know each other well, deepening existing friendships and creating new connections through hours beneath the sun and in the lab. Whether they’re handling live animals, taking measurements, or refilling aquarium tanks, the students step up for each other. 

“I love working with my friends,” Power said.

For these budding scientists, research on the coast is a manifestation of childhood passions, and all four hope to pursue careers in marine science or conservation. 

“I grew up watching Our Planet, and I’ve probably seen every single ocean documentary out there,” Jenkins said. “It was a childlike wonder that has developed and matured into college and actual career paths forward.”

Frye first told his parents that he would become a marine biologist when he was 10 years old and has followed through with his promise to work alongside marine animals: He spent last fall studying in Croatia and working with dolphins and sea turtles. The mysterious allure of the blue depths and the opportunity for discovery keeps him hooked.

“We don’t know much about the ocean,” Frye said. “We know very little, and we’re learning more each day.”

This summer’s research was Leight’s second time working with mussels, if you count waitressing at a hometown restaurant that served an unforgettable mussel dish.

“The bowls that it was in were made to spill,” Leight said. “You would be carrying them and then the broth from the dish would just be all over you. That’s my number one memory of mussels.”

Leight hopes to pursue a career, perhaps in nonprofit or policy work, that combines her dual interests in religious and environmental studies, whose intersection she learned from her parents — one a scientist with NOAA, the other an Episcopal priest.

“I grew up in a household where science and religion were main topics of discussion and very intertwined with each other,” Leight said. “That’s not something I felt like I could let go when I went to �ֲ���ý.”

With the lab work completed, the quartet will split up to write their respective theses over the coming months. And Baumann will settle in for what will hopefully be a couple decades of ocean and mussel measurements, each data point bringing him one step closer to uncovering what is ailing Maine’s iconic blue shellfish.

Each spring, �ֲ���ý greens up, both the campus and its sustainability efforts.

One sign: the annual announcement of Green Innovation Grants, which award up to $10,000 to fund creative solutions proposed by �ֲ���ý students, faculty, and staff to address campus sustainability challenges.

“We crowdsource a lot of good sustainability ideas from people who work on campus and walk around campus every day,” says Assistant Director of Sustainability Tom Twist. “The idea is to really empower students and staff and faculty to have control over the sustainability of their own campus.”

This year’s Green Innovation Grants will fund:

• A paint-waste mitigation system for Schaeffer Theatre, proposed by Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell, Costume Director Rebecca Armstrong, Technical Director Justin Moriarty, and Associate Professor of Theater Courtney Smith;
• More tools and bikes for the �ֲ���ý Green Bike bicycle exchange program, proposed by Erik Lindholm ’27 and Sam Child ’25;
• Additional compost bins for campus and educational programming about composting, proposed by Maddie Weinstein ’27, Caroline Mayer ’26, and Sarah Smith ’26;
• The �ֲ���ý Reuse Hub, through which students can easily donate their used items to other students, proposed by Anna Cole ’25 and Vyshu Viju ’26;
• A permanent fence for the �ֲ���ý Garden to keep out woodchucks, deer, and other veggie-eating wildlife, proposed by Nimco Jama ’25 and Deven Thapaliya ’25.

Over the years, projects initially funded as pilot programs under the Green Innovation program have become baked into the college’s sustainability efforts, “which is great,” Twist says.

The student-run �ֲ���ý Garden, affectionately known as the PLOT, and the stainless steel cups that Dining Services distributes to students in lieu of disposable coffee cups both originated as Green Innovation Grant initiatives.

Likewise, staff and faculty from the Department of Theater and Dance hope that their Green Innovation Grant initiative will inspire more sustainable paint practices both within their department and around campus.

“This opportunity really prompted us to examine our practices, and encouraged us to seek out actively responsible solutions to processes we weren’t previously addressing,” McDowell says. “I’m so excited to make these modest, but, I believe, long-ranging changes to our painting systems, and to educate students as to their own uses of latex paint and its environmental impacts.”

As an inherently fleeting art form, theater presents unique sustainability questions. Without careful attention, costumes and props easily become one-hit wonders, stars for a week before being relegated to storage or the waste stream. 

At �ֲ���ý, theater faculty and staff prioritize the reuse of materials. “We produce things with the goal of saving as much as we can possibly save so that we can reuse it mindfully,” says McDowell. 

With their 2025 Green Innovation Grant initiative, �ֲ���ý theater will be able to use latex paint for theater sets more efficiently.

“Latex paint has been around a long time, and there have been lots of innovations on how to mitigate the impact it has on the environment,” Armstrong says. “We know we’re going to be using it. So we want to make sure that we’re using it in the most responsible ways that we can.”

As multiple painters tackle a set-design project, working with disposable paint trays and perhaps pouring more paint than they can use up in one sitting, waste can quickly accumulate.

“We’re an incredibly active department,” Armstrong says. “There’s almost always something going on: student productions, dance productions, guest speakers, guest performance pieces. We need to be just as active in our sustainability efforts.”

With the funds, the theater team will buy a dozen Repaint Studio paint trays to replace disposable paint trays. The trays come with silicone liners and lids that can preserve unused paint for up to two weeks, allowing painters to begin, pause, and resume projects without wasting already-poured paint.

The silicone liners allow users to peel dried paint off the silicone and throw it away, instead of washing it down the drain.

Still, paint brushes need to be cleaned, and here, the department will rework its system for organizing and cleaning brushes to maximize efficiency and limit the amount of paint entering the sink. At the same time, they will install a solids collection unit to divert paint solids from the general water stream.

“Think of it like the garbage disposal in your kitchen,” Armstrong says. “It’s trapping the sediment so that it doesn’t go into the water further down the stream.”

Theater faculty and staff hope that their sustainable changes will inspire similar efforts around campus. While working on shows and taking theater courses — including the Short Term scenic arts course planned for next spring — students will be exposed to sustainable practices and different ways of thinking about waste simply by using new tools and systems, Armstrong says.  

“It’s just about being more mindful about the entire life cycle of the project and the paint and the supplies,” Armstrong says.

Additionally, the changes to sustainable paint management in the theater could influence similar adjustments to departments around campus that use paint, such as Facility Services and the Department of Art and Visual Culture Department, say Armstrong and McDowell.

Every incremental effort to improve sustainability, no matter how small, can make a positive impact and help �ֲ���ý reach its sustainability goals.

“Every time you use something, there’s some environmental trade-off somewhere,” McDowell says. “I do like to think about that.”

When the �ֲ���ý student EcoReps encounter a sustainability problem that needs solving, they don’t sit idle and debate — they get into gear and execute solutions.

In two of their most recent successes, the students helped to secure funding to solve an unexpected problem with the existing electric vehicle chargers on campus and to purchase a slew of new EVs for campus use.

“It’s really cool that as students, I feel like we have a voice,” says Martin Carriere ’25, an EcoRep from Davis, Calif. “I always feel like our ideas are heard. We’re positioned to have bolder ideas and be able to bring those to the table.”

�ֲ���ý is known for its impressive achievements in sustainability, but the existential threat of climate change gives expanding the work great urgency. Carriere, a double major in politics and environmental studies, and fellow EcoRep Cassidy Meyer ’25, an environmental studies major from Carbondale, Colo., are both set to graduate this month — and both are working on sustainability solutions right until the end. 

The pair even squeezed in a meeting with college leaders on local renewable energy during their last week of classes, amid the haze of studying for finals and saying goodbyes.

Carriere, Meyer, and Izzy Larson ’25 of East Aurora, N.Y., comprise the Energy Solutions Group within the EcoRep program, which provides hands-on opportunities for students to work on sustainability and environmental issues on campus.

The three seniors are also members of the college’s Committee on Environmental Responsibility, a working group of faculty, staff, and students charged with enacting �ֲ���ý’ Sustainability Roadmap. The ambitious plan outlines the steps required to meet the college’s goal of becoming climate positive by 2030.

�ֲ���ý is one of about only 15 U.S. colleges and universities that are carbon neutral, meaning they produce net-zero carbon emissions. The college reached this milestone ahead of schedule in 2019 and now aims to become climate positive through sequestering more carbon than it produces.

In alignment with the college’s sustainability goals, �ֲ���ý has incrementally expanded on-campus infrastructure for electric vehicles and currently has 12 publicly-available EV chargers. The EcoReps have long discussed the possibility of adding additional EV chargers or upgrading those already on campus to meet growing interest in EVs.

In 2020, students conducted a campus-wide survey and found that 75 percent of respondents answered that they were considering or planning on the purchase of an electric car. Currently, more than 60 people on campus drive some kind of plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle.

Earlier this fall, Carriere and Meyer hastened the EcoReps’ burgeoning plans to improve charging on campus when a sudden software change disabled several features of �ֲ���ý’ current chargers. The products from Italy-based company Enel X were initially “smart” chargers, equipped with network software that recorded usage data. 

The chargers also connected to a cell phone app that charged drivers money for the electricity they used, a key incentive in encouraging people to move their fully-charged cars off the chargers, making them available to others.

But when Enel X unexpectedly ended its North American operations earlier this fall, chargers installed across North America became “dumb,” no longer able to communicate data with the network or charge EV users for electricity. 

With an eye on fixing the problem while expanding the college’s EV charger offerings, Carriere and Meyer went to work. With an idea prepared and the support of Tom Twist, who is the college’s assistant director of sustainability, Carriere, Martin, and Larson identified a.

The grant program provides funds to public-facing institutions to purchase and install Level 2 EV chargers, the second-fastest level of chargers among three tiers, in community areas where drivers frequently congregate. “�ֲ���ý is nicely positioned to have chargers that are accessible to the community because there are lots of areas to walk around while your EV is charging, and it’s conveniently fairly close to the highway,” Meyer says.

Twist and the EcoReps submitted their grant proposal in October and within just a couple of days heard good news: Efficiency Maine had given preliminary approval to fund four new EV chargers for �ֲ���ý. (Federal approval for the grant arrived early in January.) Additional funding was identified to update the existing 12 chargers.

ReVision Energy will install the new chargers from ChargePoint, the most popular brand for Level 2 chargers in the U.S., by June 2025. The new devices will properly charge users money for electricity use and communicate usage data.

The parking lot behind Merrill Gymnasium will have eight total charging stations, including one at an ADA compliant parking spot, and additional chargers will be located around campus behind Lane Hall, in front of Smith Hall, behind Kalperis Hall, and behind Bonney Science Center.

Improving EV charging is just one facet of Meyer and Carriere’s broader focus on energy efficiency and electrification as viable climate solutions. Pursuing such solutions with the EcoReps has been a successful way to put the serious, sometimes downbeat knowledge gleaned from environmental studies coursework toward actionable change.

“The EcoReps program has been a great opportunity to learn how to move change forward,” Carriere says. “Tom’s been so fantastic in allowing us to take a role where we have some say.”

Both students have been involved in climate action since high school — Carriere researched waterfowl and wildlife conservation, and Meyer started the environmental justice club at her high school — but have found their work in energy to be the most rewarding avenue for making change.

“Working in the energy sector, it feels like you’re making tangible progress,” Meyer says. “The projects that you are engaging in move the needle a little bit more than other things that I’ve done in the environmental sector.”

At �ֲ���ý, Meyer and Carriere are working against the backdrop of a college that has gained recognition for promoting environmental responsibility. In 2024, the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education recognized �ֲ���ý’ sustainability achievements, ranking the college No. 10 in overall sustainability out of 1,200 schools in 52 countries

Meyer and Carriere have helped advance �ֲ���ý’ Sustainability Roadmap from several angles. Last year, they helped identify funding through the Inflation Reduction Act’s federal direct pay incentive, available to nonprofits, and tapped into an Efficiency Maine initiative to successfully add eight new electric vehicles to �ֲ���ý’ fleet.

The students worked closely with the Casco Bay Ford dealership and �ֲ���ý Facility Services to purchase a Ford E-Transit van, a new Ford F-150 Lightning pick-up truck, two Nissan Leafs, a Chevrolet Blazer, and three low-speed vehicles.

After successfully bringing both EVs and their chargers to campus, Carriere and Meyer are now focused on the Sustainability Roadmap’s goal of using 100 percent local and renewable energy by 2045. Currently, about 75 percent of �ֲ���ý’ electricity is powered by the college’s 18,500-panel, 7.13-megawatt solar array northeast of Lewiston in Skowhegan. 

Carriere and Meyer are working with campus leaders to address the final 25 percent needed to meet �ֲ���ý’ goal and are currently interested in the possibility of installing solar panels atop a campus building. Like other sustainability initiatives, implementing solar provides ancillary benefits.

“From our perspective, having solar on campus would be super cool and compelling for admitted students, prospective students, and the students on campus to feel more connected to their energy use,” Meyer says. 

The students’ close working relationship with Facility Services has been enormously helpful in completing their various projects, Carriere and Meyer say. Tim Pratt, director of Facility Services operations, and Jay Phillips, the previous director — both present and past members of the CER, respectively — were both open to bringing EVs on campus and hearing the students’ proposals.

“They’ve been fantastic to work with,” Carriere says. “We’ve had to do no convincing of why EVs are important. As long as we can show them that it’s a strong financial comparison to the internal combustion engine, then they’re like, alright, let’s do it.”

Chris Streifel, director of capital planning and construction, and Jason Hehlo, energy manager, have also worked closely with the students to identify clean energy areas of improvement.

Now in the final days of their undergraduate careers, as Meyer and Carriere wrap up their fervent environmental work at �ֲ���ý, they are looking to their futures. Longterm, both students hope to pursue careers in energy.

“Working in a sustainability role for municipal government is my dream job,” Carriere says. “You can have direct impact on people’s lives.”

Meyer hopes to work on large renewable energy development projects in a corporate position.

“Seeing Tom Twist in his role has inspired me to want to work in the sustainability office of a corporation,” she says. “Being able to choose what projects to take on and moving corporations toward a more sustainable future by making compelling economic arguments is something that I’ve learned through the EcoReps.”

The weekend after finals, both graduating students will leave Maine for California; Carriere is heading home to Davis to spend time with family, while Meyer heads to the mountains around Lake Tahoe to teach adaptive skiing for the winter season. 

Though Carriere and Meyer will be on the other side of the country, they’ll leave behind legacies of their time at �ֲ���ý: brand-new chargers, staff driving around campus in quiet cars, and maybe even prospective Bobcats marveling at solar panels during campus tours.

At the �ֲ���ý Trashion Show, one person’s trash is not just another’s treasure, but perhaps even another’s trend.

The event, held annually after the Harvest Meal in Commons, invites students, faculty, and staff to design and display couture outfits fashioned from campus waste.

�ֲ���ý has been a carbon-neutral institution since 2019 and aims to become climate-positive by 2030. The college leads numerous projects geared toward improving sustainability on campus. The Trashion Show is one such effort, merging fun, fashion, and environmental responsibility to illustrate the volume of waste created at �ֲ���ý.

Awaiting the start of the 19th annual show on Wednesday evening, a wide gathering of campus community members — students plus faculty and staff, some with their children — milled about in the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building, snacking on assorted desserts and dancing to music by student DJ Ethan Rayburn ’25 of Blacklick, Ohio, while folks took photos in front of a fall-themed photo booth. 

Beyond the crowd, the empty Trashion Show stage anticipated its models. Designers snuck backstage, creations in hand, to make final adjustments before displaying their outfits under runway lights.

�ֲ���ý President Garry W. Jenkins arrived and adopted a temporary title of fashion critic as he joined the judges’ panel for the night. 

“This is quintessential �ֲ���ý,” Jenkins said. “It’s fun, but it’s also raising awareness of important issues and people celebrating fellow faculty, staff, students coming together.” 

As the show began, the crowd conveyed this community sentiment with roars of applause and yells for the models. Students were especially enthused for model and designer Cheryl Lacey, a longtime �ֲ���ý staff member and director of Dining Services.

“I know how much our staff care about the students and to see them give the love right back is a beautiful thing,” Jenkins said.

Though the show was held in a space nicknamed the Cage, the participating students, faculty, and staff were certainly not constrained when it came to making statements with their fashionable, trash-laden pieces. Designs included an outfit fashioned in a traditional Nepali style from gift wrapping paper, a lengthy skirt and train made of shopping bags, and a top and skirt composed of food packaging waste.

After deliberation, the judges awarded co-designers Annie Robinson ’26 of Atlanta, Ga., and Grace Thomas ’26 of Bethesda, Md., first place for their elegant white gown made from recycled course readings. Second place went to Lacey, and Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read received third place.

The �ֲ���ý student EcoReps, �ֲ���ý College Student Government, and Dining, Conferences and Campus Events co-hosted the Trashion Show. EcoReps Julia Neumann ’25 of Park City, Utah, and Aneeza Ahmad ’25 of Sharon, Mass., managed the show. The emcees were BCSG co-presidents Sivani Arvapalli ’26 of South Windsor, Conn., and Ethan Chan ’25 of Westborough, Mass.

Each of the eight designer/model groups presented different interpretations of Trashion, style, and sustainability:

EcoReps Take the Stage

The Team: Isabelle Larson ’25 of East Aurora, N.Y., and Nimco Jama ’25 of Hargeisa, Somaliland

Signature Use of Trash: Grocery bags

As �ֲ���ý EcoReps, both Larson and Jama are eco-minded.

The students chose plastic and paper grocery bags as their design materials because of the items’ ubiquitous presence, and therefore heavy contribution to waste, in daily life.  

“We wanted the simplicity of our costumes to reflect everyday use of these materials,” said Larson, a double major in biology and earth and climate sciences. “They’re so common.”

Jama used plastic bags for her outfit, while Larson used paper. This was intentional, to highlight the small yet powerful choices every person can make, such as simply switching from plastic to paper bags to reduce waste.

“When you’re met with these choices about being sustainable, there is always an option,” Larson said. “Even with grocery bags, you can have an impact and limit your plastic use.”

When the show paused for the judges’ deliberation, student EcoReps Maddie Weinstein ’27 and Caroline Mayer ’26 took the stage to quiz students about recycling facts, such as which �ֲ���ý dorm recycles the least and how to effectively clean different materials before recycling them.

Jama, a biology major, said that the segment was a good opportunity for students to take away messages about how to recycle correctly. “A lot of people usually get confused about very small things that do make a big impact on whether you recycle it or put it in a trash can,” Jama said.

The Trashion Show is far from the EcoReps’ only foray into the world of sustainability. Jama, for example, works at the �ֲ���ý Garden known as the Plot, farming organic produce used in on-campus dining.

“I have been working for the Plot since my freshman year, and I’ve kind of been involved in that way, really wanting to make an impact on campus,” Jama said.

The Trashion Show fits neatly into Larson’s academic work, which centers heavily around sustainability.

“I talk about sustainability and climate change every single day,” Larson said. “It’s just another way to represent activism.”

Read What You Sew

The Team: Annie Robinson ’26 of Atlanta, Ga., and Grace Thomas ’26 of Bethesda, Md.

Signature Use of Trash: Printed academic readings

Co-designers Robinson and Thomas won first prize, a $75 gift card to Forage Market, for their magnificent white gown crafted mainly from paper and accessorized with soda tabs.

Robinson was initially inspired to participate in the Trashion Show when reflecting on a trashion-esque project she made in third grade. She reached out to Thomas, an art major, to make this year’s dress, and the two took inspiration from Pinterest and other online designs.

Robinson and Thomas made the dress, modeled by Thomas, from printed paper readings, both from their own coursework and donated by friends. They made the bouncy skirt from stacks of paper rolled up, then placed into tiered layers, and finally tied and stapled together. Variously colored annotations and even a JSTOR logo peeked out from between layers.

“We print readings all the time,” Thomas said. “This is several hundred pages of readings.”

As with many Trashion looks, the dress was difficult to fully try on until the night of the show, when the designers were able to securely tie everything into place.

“This is the best we’ve ever seen it,” said Robinson, an economics major.

Thomas also sported jewelry and a purse made from soda tabs. The designers collected about 10 percent of the soda tabs themselves, Robinson said, while a friend’s mom collected and donated the other 90 percent.

The two designers completed the look with boots crafted from the same printed readings, accented with soda tabs snaking around the sides and fronts of the shoes.

Third Time’s the Trashionista

The Team: Kirk Read, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, and Kerry O’Brien, retired Assistant Dean in the Dean of the Faculty office

Signature Use of Trash: 25 years of collected The Adventures of Tintin calendars

In his third year of walking in the Trashion Show, Read took home third prize. His tunic, covered in images from the world of Belgian cartoon character Tintin, could be considered a vintage piece, with some of its materials dating back over two decades. Read walked down the runway to the tune of “Love Hate Song” by none other than musician Alisa Amador ’18, who, as a student, was Read’s thesis advisee.

The piece introduced a new style of fashion that Read dubbed “acleisure:” academic leisure clothing.

“I am a fanatic of Tintin,” Read said. “I am both an advertisement and a ‘trashionista.’”

Kerry O’Brien, a retired assistant dean in the Dean of the Faculty office and previous Trashion Show designer, assisted Read with this year’s creation. Their one-of-a-kind work doesn’t come cheap — a tag dangling off of the design proudly touted the name “House of O’Brien-Read” alongside a hefty price of 4,000 euros.

“I love the creativity. I love the students in this,” Read said of the Trashion Show. “I’m not here to win. I’m here just to have fun and to look at what they can do. It’s just amazing.”

Groooooovy!

The Team: Juno Rogers ’28 of Decatur, Ga., Natalie Damer-Salas ’28 of Atlanta, Ga., and Ella Hassler ’28 of Kent, Ohio

Signature Use of Trash: Trash bags, sourced straight from dorm garbage

With this piece, modeled by Hassler, the designers got scrappy and scrounged materials from their dorm garbages. 

“We looked through the trash rooms in our various dorms, and we found these supplies,” Rogers said.

Using paper bags, cardboard boxes, and trash bags, they crafted a dress with a hot pink top and matching colorful skirt adorned with flowers. Angel wings coated in trash feathers completed the look and evoked Victoria’s Secret’s signature design, popularized by the brand’s runway show.

The designers found inspiration for the neon dress in the Finnish brand Marimekko, whose multicolored, flower power-esque designs came to represent women’s freedom in the hippie ‘60s.

“Even though Marimekko is a consumerist brand and uses flashy colors, it’s always stood for more progressive values,” Rogers said. “The bold colors on our dress are supposed to represent Bohemianism and the intersection between consumerism and Bohemianism.”

Trash Transformed to Tradition

The Team: Shristi Tamang ’28 of Kathmandu, Nepal, and Mari Nolasco Alcantara ’28 of Tlaxcala, Mexico

Signature Use of Trash: Real flowers in resin

For her bright set of clothing, designer Tamang drew inspiration from her home country of Nepal. 

“It was inspired by a Nepali Tamang Selo,” Tamang said. “It’s about vibrant skirts and a top.”

Tamang’s design, featuring a white blouse and flowing skirt composed of bright blocks of paper, echoes the elegance and vibrance of the dresses often worn by performers during Tamang Selo, a music and dance of the indigenous Tamang people of the Himalayan region of Nepal.

Accompanied by Taman Selo music, Alcantara modeled the outfit, showing off the light, airy skirt and matching white top as she glided down the runway. Tamang created the colorful skirt from gift wrapping paper and accessorized the outfit with a jewelry set handmade from flowers preserved in resin. A purse adorned with the same plastic material as the blouse completed the look.

“These are made from real flowers,” Tamang said, pointing toward a bright purple flower on Alcantara’s necklace. “Even the earrings are made from real flowers.”

Sustainable Material, Girl!

The Team: Vera Song ’27 of Naperville, Ill., Sadie Rooney ’27 of Andover, Mass., and Ellie Millard ’26 of Harrison, N.Y. 

Signature Use of Trash: Red Target shopping bags

Rooney took the stage in this group’s bright red, bullseye-patterned skirt, complete with a matching trail, to prove that being fashionable can be an eco-conscious endeavor.

The designers created the top of the look, a white crop top adorned with paper flowers, from reused academic readings, including articles about the environment, and used cups. 

“We’ve tried to pull in readings that we were assigned in class or had to print out for class because we felt like they should be repurposed in some way,” said Rooney, an economics and environmental studies major.

For the bottom of the outfit, the designers shaped Target shopping bags into a lengthy, elegant skirt. 

The designers are members of Plant Futures, a student organization dedicated to plant-centric food systems and sustainable practices. Both the readings and bags were unused items that the students had sitting around their homes.

In her white and red outfit fit for a billboard, Rooney looked straight out of a Target ad campaign touting sustainability. In the words of their runway script, “you can be fabulous and eco-conscious, no material world required.”

Time and Space Travel

The Team: Sophia Porecca ’28 of Sugar Land, Texas, and Celia Horowitz ’28 of Salt Lake City, Utah

Signature Use of Trash: Discarded chemistry glasses

Porecca and Horowitz turned back the clock with their ’80s space pop-inspired piece.

The designers made this outfit from tissue paper, Monster Energy drink packaging, and an Amazon package.

Gathering the materials made them realize “how much trash we normally use on a day-to-day basis. I think that’s the whole point of the exhibition,” Porecca said. “It was really cool to see how much we could accumulate. We didn’t even end up using more than half of it.”

They completed the look with Horowitz’s discarded chemistry lab glasses, fashioned from a plain academic accessory into out-of-this-world gold reflective goggles. She echoed Porecca’s sentiment about the sheer volume of waste.

“It’s a big pile,” Horowitz said of the trash the two accumulated while making the project. “We didn’t realize.”

Coffee Bags and Milk Machines and Broken CDs, Oh My!

The Team: Cheryl Lacey, Director of Dining Services

Signature Use of Trash: Coffee creamer pump turned antenna

This was Lacey’s third and final Trashion appearance — she retires in January. For her eclectic amalgamation of food packaging made glamorous, the judges awarded Lacey with second prize.

In her role as director of Dining Services, Lacey sees firsthand the amount of waste generated by food packaging.

“One of the things about packaging in food service is a lot of plastic,” Lacey said. “It’s necessary because you’ve got to worry about food safety. You have to worry about freshness and quality so it’s necessary but most of that’s not recyclable.” Someday, she hopes, food packaging will be sustainable and safe.

To craft her quirky, almost extraterrestrial outfit, Lacey incorporated waste from Commons and other locations. Materials included plastic pasta bags, coffee bags, chocolate chip bags, a bag for limes, a bag for clementines, a container for watermelon, milk machine parts, alternative milk item packaging, and broken CDs. The pump from inside a coffee creamer carton perched on her head like an antenna completed the striking outfit.

Lacey’s participation in creative and illuminating events like the Trashion show will be part of her legacy at �ֲ���ý as a lively, dedicated staff member.

“I think it does call attention to the issue of waste and trying to divert waste from the waste stream, but beyond that, it just brings out the creativity in people and you see the most inspiring outfits,” Lacey said. “It’s amazing to see what people can do with trash. Amazing.”

Nearly all living things — fish or fowl, human or humpback whale — encounter industrial chemicals all the time, and whether this contact is harmful, lethal, or harmless largely depends on the amount of exposure.

For example, it’s known that exposure to triphenyl phosphate (TPhP), a chemical used as a , is harmful to humans and aquatic species at relatively high levels, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting a risk evaluation of the chemical in recent years.

Now comes new research from a �ֲ���ý team comprising Associate Professor of Biology Larissa Williams and three recent graduates, who have done the first examination of the effect of TPhP exposure in everyday life, a level known as “environmentally relevant concentrations,” discovering that everyday exposure to TPhP is harmful to zebrafish embryos and larvae — and, potentially, to human beings as well.’

Published as the cover article in the May 2024 issue of the journal Toxics, their paper, “Environmentally Relevant Concentrations of Triphenyl Phosphate (TPhP) Impact Development in Zebrafish,” was for its interest to readers and research importance.

Williams’ coauthors are �ֲ���ý alumni Ben Schmandt ’22, Gabrielle Smart ’23, and Mfon Diduff ’24, each of whom contributed to the research while working in the Williams lab as students.

Spanning three years, the �ֲ���ý research project studied TPhP exposure on zebrafish, a species that shares around 80 to 85 percent of its DNA with humans, making it an effective model for research on the effects of toxicants on both aquatic species and humans.

“With toxicants, if you throw enough at [an organism], there will be an effect. But that doesn’t make it relevant. That’s why this paper is particularly exciting.”

Larissa Williams

In the findings, says Williams, send a clarion call for more research. “We know that TPhP is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that many organisms, including humans, are exposed to. Now we know that it is likely a developmental toxicant at environmentally relevant levels. That’s worrisome. It’s critical to understand the implications of that exposure.”

The �ֲ���ý research exposed zebrafish to TPhP at everyday levels, which is in parts per billion, rather than parts per million, which most researchers have focused on.

“We were looking at exposure at the nanomolar level, a thousand times less concentrated than other studies had reported,” says Williams. “With toxicants, if you throw enough at [an organism], there will be an effect. But that doesn’t make it relevant. That’s why this paper is particularly exciting.”

The team discovered that parts-per-billion TPhP exposure harmfully affected developing zebrafish through multiple biological pathways, though the exact harmful mechanism is still not fully understood.

They found that TPhP-exposed zebrafish larvae were stunted in size and suffered from heart swelling (pericardial edema), both of which are also seen at higher exposure levels. The fish also suffered from oxidative stress, causing cell damage within hours of exposure.

Like many research endeavors, the �ֲ���ý project got inspiration from how researchers like Williams have long-running and productive collaborations with fellow researchers far from �ֲ���ý.

Years ago, while reviewing a scholarly paper for a journal, Williams came across triphenyl phosphate “as a novel obesogen, which is a chemical that interacts with your endocrine system or your hormonal system.”

That led to conversations with two researcher collaborators who have expertise with toxicants, Kari Sant of Michigan State University and Alicia Timme-Laragy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Williams asked Sant, who is an expert in obesogens, “Do we know much about triphenyl phosphate in zebrafish?” “Not a ton,” Sant replied. “You should go for it.’”

Fast forward to the start of the 2021–22 academic year, the senior year of Ben Schmandt ’22, and a conversation between Williams and Schmandt about their senior thesis project. Williams suggested looking at TPhP. “Ben looked into the literature and found the level at which TPhP is found in surface waters. So that’s where we started, at the nanomolar level, a thousand times less than the micromolar level that everyone else has been working on.”

Williams credits Schmandt for bringing urgency to the project. “Ben was interested then, and continues to be interested now, in environmental contaminants. It was very important that the project be relevant, indicative of concentrations of this chemical that aquatic organisms see — that we get exposed to — versus levels that are already known to have an effect.”

She says the project was “right up Ben’s alley, in terms of interest. Ben really ran with it. And then we further ran with it with Gabby and Mfon.”

“It’s been an amazing labor of love to turn a research project into a scientific publication,” said Schmandt, who is now a research associate in the Claussnitzer Lab at the Broad Institute, working to understand how our genetic backgrounds impact the likelihood of developing heart disease. “I know I wouldn’t be doing this work today without everything I learned from working with Larissa, Mfon, and Gabby on this project.”

As an undergraduate at �ֲ���ý, Schmandt “felt torn for a long time between a love for the environment and a passion for laboratory work.” The TPhP project united those two adversaries. “I found a passion for the specific ways the environment and genetics interact. Across contexts of pollution and disease, these interactions highlight just how little we still understand about how our surroundings impact us through our genes — that’s the mystery that brings purpose to my research.”

The research, conducted in Williams’ lab at the Bonney Science Center, involved exposing zebrafish larvae to TPhP over five days, a sufficient span to measure the chemical’s effects on this fast-growing species. That’s another reason that zebrafish are a magically effective research model. They grow from larva to adult in just 90 days, and are transparent. “At the age of 48 hours, zebrafish have produced hemoglobin, so we can see the heart,” Williams says.

The �ֲ���ý researchers photographed and measured the size of the larvae by looking at them under a stereoscope in Williams lab. The team then measured heart rates manually, observing each beat. Using a stopwatch, the researcher counts the number of heartbeats within a 30-second interval. The researchers also checked for swelling around the heart and scored it on a scale from 1 (severe swelling) to 5 (normal). And, to see if the chemical affected blood circulation, they used another microscope to capture heart movement and blood flow in the larvae.

Among other takeaways, the �ֲ���ý research success shines light on the college’s innovative and successful STEM Scholars program — which, along with other initiatives at �ֲ���ý — has opened pathways and removed barriers for students interested in science, including coauthor and recent graduate Mfon Diduff, who majored in biochemistry.

She is now a research technician at Columbia University Irving Medical Center with eyes on a medical career. “I had always loved science but never saw myself doing scientific research in the lab,” she says.

Contributing to the research paper, specifically how TPhP in the environment negatively impacts overall organ development, has inspired her to learn “more about the factors that contribute to our health, specifically maternal health, as I intend on becoming an OB-GYN.”

She now has a vision of her future self. “I absolutely see being that physician who tends to the needs of her patients while also being a researcher who goes above and beyond to know why we see such occurrences that pose imminent danger in medicine and public health.”

Each of the coauthors, said Williams, used the project to further their path toward purposeful work. Schmandt was inspired by the environmental science side, Diduff by the public health aspect, and Gabby Smart ’23, now in veterinary school at Washington State, “was really excited to be working with animals, which we find with a lot of our pre-vet students prior to vet school.”

Smart notes that “animals may even be more affected by some of the chemicals we researched. Being in the veterinary field gives me a front row seat on how exposure to such chemicals affect animal health and longevity. I hope to continue to be an advocate for both environmental and animal health, which in turn will have a positive impact on human health.”

For the Williams lab, the next chapter in the research is to zero in on how and when TPhP does what it does to developing animals.

All developing animals, whether zebrafish larvae or human fetuses, “are exposed to a lot of different chemicals,” she explains. “It’s really the timing of that exposure that really matters, what we call the window of susceptibility.”

Alcohol is a familiar example. “Alcohol in a human fetus is highly toxic very early in pregnancy, but becomes less toxic as the fetus develops. If there is exposure early on, it has a much larger impact than later on. Many chemicals work that way. Part of what we do in our lab is to figure out that window.”

With a new grant from Maine INBRE, the lab will do more precise toxicant testing at different stages of zebrafish development. “We were able to show that chronic exposure over the entire developmental period impacted them. Now what we want to know is, as the heart’s developing and you add a toxicant, how does that change the trajectory of development?”

That knowledge “will help us unpack the biological mechanisms behind the phenotypes that we’re seeing. That will be data used by my thesis students this coming year.”

Hathorn Hall, the college’s first building, is home to faculty offices in English, neuroscience, and mathematics, plus several administrative offices and high-ceiling classrooms.

And until last week, it was also the residence of around 50,000 honeybees.

Each summer, workers in the various building trades swarm the campus, taking on projects large and small, so they inevitably discover animal homes, whether squirrels in a Frye Street attic or a thriving honeybee hive in the college’s oldest building.

Discovered by painters working on the 1855 building’s white trim, the hive was within the soffit where the portico roof joins the brickwork of the main building. 

After its discovery (“the hard way,” said a painter who was stung), Facility Services made a call to Brian Mason, . He arrived at 8:30 a.m. last Thursday to begin removing the hive. 

Joining him was Facility Services carpenter Matt Capone. As the two donned bee suits, Mason opined that the �ֲ���ý hive was probably new. It was a safe guess, since many hives in the wild die off each year. 

With Capone at the controls of a Genie boom lift, the pair ascended two stories to the site of the hive. As more and more bees buzzed around them, Capone used an oscillating multitool and pry bars to remove a section of wood trim. That opened the soffit for Mason, who used a homemade vacuum to suck up the bees and special hive tools to scrape the extensive comb attached to the roof joists.

As he worked, Mason tossed pieces of comb onto the floor of the boom basket. Soon, honey was dripping from the basket, some drops tasted by onlookers. Hallelujah, it’s raining honey! Later on, Mason took a big taste from a comb. “Bobcat Blend, local honey,” he said. “Tastes great!”

About 45 minutes into their work, Capone lowered the boom to the ground. The hive was much bigger than Mason had originally thought. Given the amount of comb and its very good condition, he wanted to save what he could. He exited the basket and headed back to his car to retrieve a box for saved pieces of comb, which, in addition to honey, contained the brood — eggs, larvae, and pupae — within the hexagonal cells.

The size of the hive told Mason that the hive was not new, likely having survived at least one Maine winter. Mason also noticed some long-abandoned combs. Because bees prefer to colonize where hives have been before, the hive “also could’ve been active years ago, then abandoned, and then resettled in the last couple of years.” 

Wild honeybees aren’t casual about where they create their hives — for them, like humans, it’s all about location, location, location.

“The �ֲ���ý location checked all the boxes,” Mason said. For example, “in the wild, bees prefer to nest well off the ground, as they did at �ֲ���ý.” And in northern climates, bees often choose a south-facing location (Hathorn faces southwest) to help with warmth and temperature control, and prefer dry, dark, and deep spaces, which the soffit certainly was. 

And the �ֲ���ý hive had a single entrance, a small slit that had opened up behind a downspout. “A single entrance helps bees regulate the temperature of the hive and helps them defend the hive,” Mason said. 

And defend the bees did, dive-bombing Mason and Capone with the gusto of wartime aviators. When Mason returned to the ground to retrieve the box, he showed his glove, which was dotted with tiny yellowish nobules. “Venom sacks from bees trying to sting,” he said. 

Capone said that compared to milled trim boards available today, the wood trim removed from Hathorn was heavy, thick, and nailed into place with 19th-century square nails. That meant the trim was likely original to the building.

As passers-by became a crowd of onlookers, they buzzed about the fate of the queen. Folks wanted to know if Mason captured the queen in his vacuuming? “We don’t know that,” he said. His homemade bee vacuum uses a regular shop-vac motor that has baffling between the motor and the container that reduces the mortality of bees being sucked in. “But vacuuming is not 100 percent mortality-free, so the queen could’ve been killed,” he said. 

Evidence that the queen was gone came a few days later: The former hive space was quiet, with only a few bees hanging around in desultory fashion, a signal that the nest had indeed lost its leader. It was Monday morning, and Capone had returned to do some reconnaissance before replacing the original trim pieces and caulking the opening where the bees had entered.

Mason commended �ֲ���ý for calling in a beekeeper rather than an exterminator. “100 percent credit,” he said. 

The fact that the �ֲ���ý hive was not only healthy but had apparently survived at least one winter, if not more, was important, he said. Many wild honeybee hives die off each winter, and commercially maintained hives typically rely on treatments to control mites that can decimate hives.

“Less human intervention is always valuable,” Mason said. “The fact that this hive wintered without intervention means the bees might just have something going for them to survive. So now I can introduce the �ֲ���ý bees into my apiary. That’s a win.”