Exploring the mudflat

“It was a stellar year for moon snails, anemones and sea squirts,” reports Sandra Ruggiero, life science teacher at Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay. Mrs. Ruggiero and the seniors spent a week studying marine invertebrates at Hermit Island, a peninsula off Bath Maine during a week of their zoology block in September.

Also at Hermit Island, were seven other high schools--Merricconeag Waldorf School in Maine, Hartsbrook School and Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School in Western Massachusetts, Lake Champlain Waldorf School in Vermont, Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School and Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs in New York, and Kimberton Waldorf School in Pennsylvania

Students and teachers from all the schools shared main lessons studying mollusks, anthropods, echinoderms and worms. Students took inventory of the tide pools, and dug clams and worms from the mudflats. In labs they studied sea life under microscopes, made drawings and watercolor paintings of the beautiful seascape, wrote poetry, and studied beach and dune ecology. On the last day, each of the students had a solo experience to reflect and write about the rhythms of the island and all that they had experienced.

There was plenty of time for social experiences with students from the other Waldorf schools during their week of camping. They cooked over the camp fire, swam in the cold ocean (at least some of them did), played volleyball, ate lobster, had a contra dance, engaged in campfire discussions and, one evening, listened to a guest poet and short story writer.

Though the waves at the beginning of the week were dramatic due to the effects of Hurricane Igor, the weather during most of the week was perfect, with one light shower during the last night.

The Hermit Island experience is a regular part of the zoology main lesson class.