Students Challenged to use Old Knowledge for New Solutions

For the Wabanaki people, who have called northern New England and maritime Canada home for thousands of years, the fields of public health and environmental science — and the two ways of thinking — are inextricably linked. That perspective is central to a new student exchange program between summer interns at Bigelow Laboratory and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness, a tribal organization that serves Wabanaki communities across Maine.

“You’re always in relationship with whatever is around you — the land, other people, yourself,” said Jillian Worster, a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik and WPHW Tribal Internship Coordinator. “It’s a natural view, for us, that you can’t have physical well-being without a healthy environment.”

The new initiative kicked off this summer with a visit by WPHW interns for several days of peer-to-peer learning, cultural exchange, and scientific exploration alongside Bigelow Laboratory researchers and interns.

“Our work around ocean science touches on a lot of things that are related to public health, and we want to help students explore those connections,” said Senior Research Scientist Rachel Sipler, who directs Bigelow Laboratory’s Water Health and Humans Initiative. “We also want our students to learn how to integrate community-based observations and understanding in a way that informs and betters their science.”

The new collaboration evolved out of conversations between Sipler and Lisa Sockabasin, a member of the Passamaquoddy from Motahkomikuk and co-CEO of WPHW. The two met at a Maine Leadership Initiative event and, according to Sipler, quickly discovered their shared interests around keeping Maine’s people and environment healthy — and engaging youth in that effort.

Fortuitously, Senior Research Scientist David Fields was at that moment applying to the National Science Foundation to renew its support for the institute’s summer internships through the Research Experience for Undergraduates program. So, the three developed a plan as part of that application for a peer-learning experience for interns of both organizations.

During the recent visit, the WPHW interns spent time working with Bigelow Laboratory scientists in the lab and learning oceanographic sampling techniques aboard the institute’s research vessel, the R/V Bowditch. They also visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which recently commissioned two permanent installations by Indigenous artists. And one evening, leadership of both organizations joined the students in a night of storytelling with Carol Wishcamper, co-chair of the Maine Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Roger Paul, a Wabanaki storyteller and language teacher, linguistics expert, and member of the Passamquoddy and Maliseet Tribes.

“The whole experience was a lot of fun,” said one of the WPHW summer interns, Gavin Allen, a recently graduated New Media major at University of Maine and member of the Penobscot Nation. “Getting to spend time seeing how samples are collected on the boat was especially cool since it’s all totally new to me.”

Though still in its infancy, the benefits for the collaboration are already evident for the interns of both programs.

“A lot of our interns grew up on or around the ocean, but not many of them have gotten to do this kind of work or see how it complements their own worldview,” Worster said. “Being so wildly out of their comfort zone was a great way to push how they think about things and really bolster their confidence.”

Sipler said the same for Bigelow Laboratory interns, who had the opportunity not just to engage with the visitors but also to show them the methods the students spent the summer learning.

“In a 10-week internship, it can be difficult to understand your project enough to teach it and relate it to a different discipline, but this gave them an opportunity to do that,” Sipler said. “They get so deep into their projects, so this was also a chance for them to step back and see how the piece of the puzzle they’re working on fits into the bigger picture.”

But the recent visit was just the beginning. The eventual goal, says both Sipler and Worster, is to build out the exchange so Bigelow Laboratory interns can get a similar experience with WPHW and students on both sides can participate in joint research projects. The exchange is also just one example of Bigelow Laboratory efforts, guided by Sipler’s Water Health and Humans Initiative, to work collaboratively with Maine communities on critical environmental health issues around food systems, dam removal, water contamination, and more.

“This work is hard, and the issues we’re grappling with are big,” said Sockabasin, the WPHW CEO during the evening story event. “We need new ways to deal with the challenges we’re facing, but we also need to look back to some really old ways. You need both approaches, which is what we’re trying to do here.”

Photo 1: WPHW interns Jayla Altvater and Gavin Allen learn new sampling techniques aboard the R/V Bowditch alongside Bigelow Laboratory scientists David Fields and Maura Niemisto.

Photo 2: WPHW intern Kristin Anderson learns about environmental DNA techniques with Postdoctoral Scientist Robin Sleith.

Photo 3: WPHW intern Caroline Sullivan learns how to operate a CTD instrument aboard the R/V Bowditch.

Photo 4: Interns from both Bigelow Laboratory and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness gather for a communal dinner before an evening story event with Roger Paul and Carol Wishcamper.