Linnea Goh ’23
On a foggy summer morning as the tide rolled in and the smell of salt wafted through the air, we examined garlic-scented sea stars, barnacles the size of cups, and bright orange sea cucumbers. For my internship I was a kayak guide in Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the West Coast of Canada. One of my favorite aspects of kayak guiding was having the opportunity to share my excitement and care for the ocean.
By Linnea Goh ’24
“What would be your ideal college experience?” A friend asked me this question a couple months before I applied for college. I described my dream university experience as an intimate school community situated by the ocean with small class sizes, hands-on, place-based learning, and a focus on both marine biology and sustainable development. Smiling, he told me about College of the Atlantic. Intrigued, I immediately began researching COA and fell in love with the school. Although you can never quite tell what a place will be like from websites and brochures, COA has been everything I was looking for and more.
Marine Ecology
Waking up at 6:30 in the morning to trudge across a mud flat is not the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about college, but it was definitely a highlight of my Marine Ecology class. On this one early Tuesday morning, ecology and biology professor Chris Petersen picked me up to drive to Otter Creek. As we wandered down to the flat dressed in waders and carrying wooden frames stapled to mesh sheets, the sulfuric smell of mud woke me up with its pungent odor. Although we were there to install the recruitment boxes to measure predation on clams, I probably spent more time trying to figure out how to walk in mud. Coming back to campus completely drenched in sludge was a highlight of my term and made me feel rejuvenated.
Watersheds
Silt, coarse gravel, cobble, boulder. As an outsider, you might have wondered why the 15 students of earth science professor Sarah Hall’s Watersheds class were zigzagging across a stream, picking up every rock at the toe of their boots. By measuring rocks, we were able to learn about the effects of erosion and sedimentation on the composition of Breakneck Brook. During this class, we learned many techniques to monitor streams, but my favorite data collection days always involved standing hip deep in water as the stream flowed past me. At the end of the course, we synthesized this data to create a report for Acadia National Park. I particularly enjoyed this class, and I learned concrete, field-based skills while simultaneously getting to know the watersheds of MDI. This helped me feel more connected to the place I now call home.
Polar Ecology and Exploration
While backpacking on a seemingly pristine beach on Vancouver Island, I discovered broken laundry baskets nestled between logs, fragments of microplastics scattered throughout the sand, and even a buoy from Singapore. That moment was when I became concerned about humans’ environmental impacts on remote locations. When marine sciences professor Sean Todd asked me to write an eight-page essay on any topic related to the Arctic or Antarctica for his class, Polar Ecology and Exploration, I decided to use this opportunity to dive deep into my passion for microplastic pollution. At first, the length of the essay seemed daunting, but once I started researching, I couldn’t stop. Time flew by and mealtimes slipped past as I sat in the computer lab sifting through paper after paper on different aspects of microplastics in the polar regions. What scared me the most was a study I read disclosing the presence of microplastics on the Byers Peninsula, one of the least-visited places on the planet. This got me thinking; if there’s plastic in desolate locations of Antarctica, do areas of untouched wilderness even exist? Although the research project raised more questions than it answered, it inspired me to continue searching for and creating solutions and answers as I continue with my time at COA and beyond.
