Maine Audubon

Maine Audubon in Falmouth, Maine, will collaborate with Wabanaki Tribes, Portland Public Schools, and others to extend environmental/STEM education opportunities while engaging learners of all ages in the history and culture of the Wabanaki. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the persistent, disproportionate vulnerability and seeming invisibility of Native communities. In this program, students will learn the history of the significant and now endangered Atlantic salmon as Indigenous scientists, leaders, and elders present their deep knowledge, cultural perspectives, and traditional ways of sustaining the fish via filmed interviews. High-quality film will memorialize contemporary Wabanaki voices and showcase lands and rivers that have sustained Maine's Native communities for more than 600 generations. This program has intertwined goals of raising awareness of Maine's enduring first inhabitants and their traditional ecological knowledge and teaching about salmon, fish biology, habitats, and conservation.