2024 – 25 Education Impact Report: 20 Years of Learning

During the 2024 – 25 school year, our education team advanced our integrated approach to support learning in the classroom, lab, field, and beyond. By reaching students across multiple age groups and environments, we increased access to and participation in hands-on learning experiences that strengthen climate and STEM literacy. We provided formal and informal educators with the professional development opportunities, curriculum resources, and networks they need to engage youth in data-rich, authentic science experiences in their own classrooms and learning spaces. We also conducted regular learning science research to generate evidence-based best practices in STEM teaching and learning, including work by our Learning Sciences Lab to bring modeling into classrooms.

We deeply appreciate the contributions of the many individuals who have made this work possible, including our educator networks, partner organizations, and community of donors. As we look forward to the next 20 years, our education team is particularly focused on supporting the strategic initiatives outlined in our 2025 – 2030 Strategic Plan by building understanding of marine ecosystems and economies, engaging communities in climate-centered science, and introducing youth to diverse career paths in STEM fields. We hope you will join us in looking ahead to the continued evolution of our education work while celebrating recent accomplishments from the 2024 – 25 school year.

LabVenture

LabVenture is an immersive experience that sets students on the path of engaging in scientific discovery with confidence, competence, and curiosity. This program brings early middle school students from across Maine to our Cohen Center for Interactive Learning, where they become scientists for a day. We are proud to have reached our goal to host 70% of Maine’s fifth and sixth grade cohort through LabVenture this past school year, including students from all 16 counties. To ensure equitable access to STEM education for all students, we hosted all eligible schools from Lewiston Public Schools and Portland Public Schools — both of which have significant New Mainer (asylee, immigrant, and refugee) populations — and reached two of the three schools in the Wabanaki school system. We also continued to provide free transportation for all participating public schools, ensuring access for Maine’s rural communities.

The upcoming 2025 – 26 school year will mark LabVenture’s 20th anniversary and our lifetime reach on over 175,000 students across Maine. We will celebrate this achievement alongside the LabVenture staff, participating educators, and supporters who make this program possible each year. The LabVenture team is constantly reinventing the program to reflect new approaches, and plans are already on the drawing board for the next iteration of LabVenture’s curriculum and program delivery.

Community Science

In order for science learning to have meaningful, lasting impacts, we must help students relate science to the world around them. Our Community Science program achieves this by supporting educators to lead students through authentic investigations of vernal pools, intertidal zones, forests, and other local ecosystems in their communities.

In the 2024 – 25 school year, we worked with educators to engage students in field work and stewardship actions across a diverse range of ecosystems, from rocky intertidal zone and coastal mudflats to vernal pools and inland forests. Along the coast, students monitored populations of invasive crab species (e.g. Asian shore and European green crabs) and documented the impacts of flooding and sea level rise in their communities. In forested landscapes, students worked alongside educators, professional scientists, and community leaders to observe and steward two critical tree species: hemlock and brown ash. In total, students collected 1,533 data points that will be used to advance our understanding of ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine’s watershed.

Findings from the Field

Findings from the Field (“Findings”) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal featuring environmental investigations conducted and written by middle and high school students. Launched in 2017 in collaboration with a community of student scientists and teachers across Maine and New Hampshire, Findings gives students the opportunity to engage in and communicate about real scientific questions.

In the 2024 – 25 school year, we worked with educators to engage 277 students in Findings across the writing, review, and publication processes. We published Findings: Volume 8 in Summer 2025 and introduced “Expressions of Two-Eyed Seeing,” a publication type supported by a collaboration of Indigenous and Western science educators and inspired by the Mi’kmaq principle of Etuaptmumk, or Two-Eyed Seeing. We also hosted our second in-person Findings Research Symposium in March 2025, which brought together scientists, educators, and nearly 100 young scientists to share their scientific observations and discoveries. This symposium gave students the opportunity to present their research, discuss their observations with community volunteers from Unum and Avangrid, and connect with researchers from GMRI, the University of New England, and other organizations.

Scientist to Go

Scientist to Go is a virtual lecture series that allows students to meet and interact with visiting scientists and learn more about a wide array of scientific fields and kinds of scientific work. This program exposes students to a diverse group of scientists and science career paths and demonstrates science in ways that students may not see in a traditional classroom setting. In the 2024 – 25 school year, we hosted 10 Scientist to Go webinars on topics including marine science and data analysis, terrestrial ecology, meteorology and coastal dynamics, sustainable fishing practices, community climate resilience planning, and experience maintaining the International Space Station from Earth; recordings of these webinars are available on the Scientist To Go website.

Learning Ecosystems Northeast (LENE)

Our Education team believes that youth deserve meaningful opportunities to engage in STEM both in and out of the classroom. That belief drives our commitment to Learning Ecosystems Northeast (LENE), a partnership of organizations that together equip educators across the Northeast with tools, knowledge, and community to create inclusive, place-based, data-driven STEM learning experiences. We support LENE’s network of Connected Learning Ecosystems (CLEs) by bringing educators together for collaboration and professional development events where they learn from and with each other and share resources, ideas, and experiences.

LENE currently includes 18 CLEs across the Northeast, including eight Maine-based CLEs. In total, LENE reaches 214 educational organizations – including schools, libraries, science centers, and nonprofits – and supports 469 informal and formal educators working to build climate literacy. We encourage you to visit our recent story on the impact of LENE to hear educators’ perspectives about the role that LENE and CLEs have played in their teaching practice.

Learning Resources

Across all of our educational efforts at GMRI, we've created compelling curriculum resources for middle school educators; these resources are shared on our Learning Resource Hub, including projects on coastal flooding and sea level rise, invasive species, increasing local seafood in Maine schools, maple sugaring in a warming climate, and more. Through these resources, educators support students to engage as scientists as they contribute to current scientific research efforts and explore climate change impacts on ecosystems right here in the Gulf of Maine region. We have 14 curriculum modules available on our website and have circulated 281 physical resource kits to support climate and STEM learning in a variety of environments.

Appendix: Our Education Supporters

We’re deeply appreciative of the many supporters who make this work possible, including the federal, corporate, and foundation sponsors listed below and our generous individual contributors.

LabVenture Supporters

In addition to the annual supporters listed below, LabVenture is made possible by generous endowment contributors who have invested in the legacy of this program and its impact. These contributors include the Sam L. Cohen Foundation, who has been a key supporter of LabVenture since 2005.