Eagle Hill natural history seminars on the Maine coast
Each summer
since 1987, regional and national authorities in the field of natural
history have come to the Humboldt Field Research Institute to lead
intensive week-long field seminars and workshops in their specialties.
Programs are offered for an advanced and professional audience,
well-qualified undergraduate and graduate students, and amateur
naturalists. Participants include independent scholars, university
professors, amateur naturalists, professional field biologists and
consultants, foresters, and teachers, as well as personnel from museums,
botanical gardens, various federal and state agencies, and numerous
environmental organizations.
Many of the programs at the Institute are rarely offered by other institutions. They represent an exceptional value in education because they are efficient and intensive in focus. This intensity is largely possible because instructors are leading authorities in their fields and because all participants are keenly interested in the subject of a given seminar. With a limited number of participants, instructors can individualize their instructional program. Participants have the opportunity to let instructors know ahead of time what their special interests are.
The programs
are of particular interest because they focus on the classical natural
history of one of North America's most spectacular and pristine natural
areas, the coast of eastern Maine from Acadia National Park to Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge and beyond. Many programs focus on a
particular group of organisms or a particular habitat. Others present a
broad conceptual overview of a subject.
Seminars and workshops usually meet each day from breakfast through dinner and into the evening. They generally combine intensive field studies and follow-up work in the lab with lectures, discussions, and a review of the current literature. Meals are relaxed settings for informal discussions. Evenings are free for independent studies and/or slide presentations and follow-up discussions by the fireplace in the dining hall's comfortable lounge.
Why do people attend seminars and workshops at Eagle Hill?
People attend
seminars and workshops at Eagle Hill to …
-
expand their knowledge in a subject of special interest to them,
with help from an expert. - keep up-to-date and exchange current ideas in a given field.
- establish new personal and professional contacts with colleagues.
- obtain an intensive introduction to a discipline that is related to their specialty.
- create new curriculum ideas for their teaching responsibilities.
- develop research ideas and meet potential research associates.
- gain new perspectives on the flora, fauna, and geology of an unfamiliar region.
- enhance familiarity with otherwise rare flora and fauna that are still found in the essentially pristine and largely undisturbed habitats of the two easternmost counties of the US.
- improve confidence in identifying difficult groups of organisms.
- meet with other professionals and explore career ideas.
- attend specialty programs that are not offered at their own institution.
- concentrate efficiently on a given subject while free from usual distractions.
- earn needed university credits, CEUs, or recertification units.
- help justify an extended field trip to Maine, New England, and maritime Canada.