This year NHCS joined a three year Island Institute project; Community for Rural Education Stewardship and Technology. The CREST program is designed to encourage Maine island and coastal students to use technology and find creative solutions to community challenges. It is a way to integrate the school into the community by learning about and speaking with many of its members. Three students and four staff members from NHCS began CREST this Summer by going to a week long training institute. We chose to focus on the history of clamming on North Haven, a once viable industry which is now primarily recreational. Through interviews with community members and fishery biologist, Jen Litteral, we have begun to learn about what clamming was, is, and could be. We enter our second year of CREST with five students, a number of staff members, and many community participants.
North Haven is home to the soft shell clam.
This map shows the beds on North Haven that are closed from any clamming. As we research more, we hope to find the reasons for so many bed closures.
