BAR HARBOR As a participant in the fifth annual Acadia Night Sky Festival, College of the Atlantic is bringing art and science to the Blum Gallery. A special exhibit, titled 'Art In Space,' will be on view Sept. 20 Oct. 25, 2013 and a lecture, The Marriage of Art and Science, is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 27 from 46 p.m.

'Art In Space' features the work of glass artist Josh Simpson and painter Jane Runyeon. The lecture will begin with remarks by Runyeon, who will introduce NASA Space Shuttle astronaut Cady Coleman, and along with Simpson, the two will discuss how art and science co-exist and inform one other. Coleman, who has logged more than 4,000 hours in space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia and the International Space Station, will discuss the endless possibilities that the space program brings back to earth. 

BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic is pleased to announce a gift from alumna Nell Newman to help fund its renovations of the iconic Turrets building. The $20,000 grant will aid in the extensive repairs of the national historic landmark's outer envelope.

Newman '87, the daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, launched Newman's Own Organics in 1993 and is responsible for the company's product development and marketing. During her undergraduate years at the college, she lived in Turrets.

BAR HARBOR - When College of the Atlantic student Phinn Onens helped to necropsy a leatherback turtle last summer, what he found changed his academic trajectory. Onens, a senior at COA, was devastated by the cache of plastic in the turtle's stomach. Having studied marine conservation and education, he sought a visceral way of teaching others about the extent and deadly nature of plastic debris in our waters. His solution? Art.

For the past month, Onens has been assembling a sculpture made entirely of the plastic he found on Mount Desert Island's beaches. The sculpture will be unveiled at 5 p.m. on March 13 in the college's George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History. It will remain on display in the museum for several months.  

BAR HARBOR Nancy Andrews, College of the Atlantic faculty member in film and video, continues to focus on issues of medically-related delirium, through interviews, discussions, presentations and artwork.

Solar-powered electric charging station opens to the public

BAR HARBOR - Fuel up for free at College of the Atlantic! The small college on Maine's Mount Desert Island has opened a solar-powered electric charging station to any vehicle needing a recharge. Like many efforts on the COA campus, this was student-driven, linking the college to a funding group and the Maine community extending as far as the Darling's Nissan dealership in Bangor. The COA facility is at the north end of campus, and is open year-round between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Tech platform, college, form partnership to advance environmental stewardship

BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic and Project Noah have teamed up to expand the possibilities of nature education and citizen science. College of the Atlantic, or COA, is a small college on the coast of Maine harnessing experiential education and environmental stewardship to offer a distinctive interdisciplinary education in human ecology. With more than 170,000 users around the world, Project Noah is an international social media platform and mobile technology application that encourages nature lovers to share their encounters with wildlife and contribute their experiences and expertise to research projects as citizen scientists.  

College of the Atlantic's Allied Whale offers conservation gifts of whale adoptions 

BAR HARBOR - Imagine a 100-foot bubble created not by humans but by whales using the most sophisticated technology available to them: blow holes. This summer, scientists from College of the Atlantic's marine mammal research lab Allied Whale discovered one whale, Gemini, blowing a huge bubble cloud, enabling his whale pod easier access to the fish they devour. This holiday season, you can 'adopt' Gemini with a photo and life history, and know that for $30 (or $40 for a whale mother and calf) you are assisting whale conservation.

BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic's Sustainable Food Systems conference is offering a feast for the mind, mouth and eyes. The conference, Food Connections: Reconnecting Hands, Mouth & Mind through Food Systems Education, begins Friday, April 20 with a local-foods reception in the college's Blum Gallery, to celebrate an associated Maine farming photography exhibit, continuing with talks by John Piotti of Maine Farmland Trust, and the executive director of Food First, Eric Holt-Gimnez.

Food Connections treats the entire story of food, moving beyond farm and fork, to packaging, processing, distribution, sales, consumption and waste. The conference, says organizer, Molly Anderson, COA's Partridge Chair in Food and Sustainable Agricultural Systems, will come to grips with what people need to know to transform food systems and how this can best be learned.

Eric Holt-Gimnez's talk is the first keynote of the weekend focusing on food justice, food sovereignty and how these subjects are treated within our schools and colleges. After a Saturday morning welcome by COA President Darron Collins, MacArthur Fellow Gary Nabhan, author and research scientist at the University of Arizona's Southwest Center, will give a talk titled Redesigning Local Food Systems for Land Health, Human Health and Community Economic Health.