e-SML January 2007
Greetings from snowy Ithaca! 2006 ended on a high note for Shoals Marine Laboratory, with a generous outpouring of support from our donors and progress in areas central to our future. Our traditional expertise ˆ combining marine science education with adventure ˆ is being enriched by three emerging themes: sustainability, engineering and conservation. Especially exciting was a donation in December of solar panels to power a dorm on Appledore and allow us to remove the dorm from our island electrical grid ˆ a first in SML‚s history. Panel installation and related energy-conserving technologies will engage the second cohort of interns in our internship program, Island Engineering for Sustainability, and help SML decrease reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, all permits and funding are in place for the long-planned installation of a 7.5-kilowatt wind turbine to power instruments for the UNH AIRMAP Program during our off-season. I just met with the 21 students enrolled for Jim Bisogni‚s new on-campus course at Cornell, Sustainability Design for Appledore Island, and 20 other students enrolled in SML‚s new freshman seminar, Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. It is clear that today‚s students are primed for the intellectual and other work needed to make these three themes central to SML.
SML Summer 2007 also promises a renewed emphasis on our core mission to offer creative, relevant, and exciting college credit courses. SML‚s curriculum is expanding to address issues of contemporary concern and to provide courses designed to meet the needs of today‚s students. Science related to global environmental change is woven throughout our curriculum, and we have developed new and highly visible introductory courses such as Sustainability in the 21st Century to encourage students to critically examine the range of global issues that we will face in this century, from the global need for renewable energy to the philosophical reasons for species conservation to the specific questions of what would constitute long-term sustainable marine fisheries in the Gulf of Maine and elsewhere. A Marine Approach to Introductory Biology is SML‚s newest effort to reach undergraduates at the start of their college careers and offer them chances to think broadly about organisms, environments and the future. Other new courses this year include The Herring Gull‚s World, Field Microbial Ecology, Functional Morphology of Marine Organisms, Biology of the Lobster, Molecular Systematics, Seabird Conservation, Boats for Biologists, and more. Our adult and family education programs are thriving, too: 2007 marks the return of Summit to the Sea which guides participants from Mount Washington down the Merrimack Valley to the coast and ultimately to Appledore Island to appreciate the interconnections of terrestrial, riverine and marine environments. The burst of faculty and student interest in these new courses is gratifying evidence of the role that SML can play in encouraging everyone to learn more about marine environments and conservation.
For 2007, I will emphasize monthly electronic communications such as this one as a way to save paper, labor and postage. We‚ll supplement these e-SML messages with spring and fall printed issues of The Appledore Times. We have moved many other communications to the internet, too, including course announcements, which are disseminated to thousands of recipients via e-mail each Friday. Be sure to see us on the web <http://www.sml.cornell.edu> www.sml.cornell.edu and start making your plans to visit us on Appledore next summer!
Sincerely,
William E. Bemis
Kingsbury Director of Shoals Marine Laboratory
