Press Release
April 27, 2019
Camp Scholarships Awarded
Merrymeeting Audubon (MMA), a chapter of Maine Audubon, is pleased to announce the Chuck Huntington Scholarship Fund summer camp awards for 2019.
Two Topsham teenagers, both with intense interests in birding and ecology, will travel to Bremen, ME to attend the Hog Island Audubon Camp. Margaret Libby and Weston Barker will participate in the camp’s 6-day program, “Mountains to Sea Birding for Teens,” in June. The program provides the opportunity to work with some of the country’s best-known birders and ornithologists on field identification, bird ecology and conservation. The Topsham teens will experience first-hand Audubon’s seabird restoration work on Eastern Egg Rock, the restored Atlantic Puffin and Tern colony off coastal Maine.
Bath Schools Visual Fine Art Instructor, Jacqueline Johnson, will attend the teacher education program at Hog Island Camp. Ms. Johnson is an accomplished artist and educator whose work has focused on the connection between art and the environment. During the week-long program, “Sharing Nature: An Educator’s Week,” instructors will share favorite methods and activities for engaging children and adults with nature. Participants will create inquiry-based lessons. Workshops employ techniques in art, music, theater and journaling, and are coupled with field trips to Eastern Egg Rock, to the intertidal zone, and Hog Island’s spruce-fir forest.
Twenty younger local students also will attend camp on scholarships provided by Merrymeeeting Audubon. These students hail from 12 MMA communities: Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Brunswick, Durham, Freeport, Georgetown, Harpswell, Lisbon, Lisbon Falls, Topsham, West Bath and Woolwich. The University of Maine’s 4-H Camp and Learning Center at Bryant Pond, will host 13 students for a week-long session featuring outdoor skills including swimming, canoeing and a ropes course. Seven younger students will spend their scholarship week at Tanglewood 4-H Camp in the Camden Hills. The focus of this residential program is living and playing together in the natural world.
We happily congratulate winners of the Huntington Scholarships. MMA has provided summer camp scholarships to area students, teens and educators for over 40 years, and is open to residents in MMA’s catchment area. Information about the Chuck Huntington Scholarship Fund is available at https://merrymeeting.maineaudubon.org/camp-scholarships/.
