The Gulf of Maine is one of the richest bioregions on Earth. It is a source of food, water, economic stability, recreation and spiritual renewal for those who live there. Due to climate change the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other comparable body of water on Earth. Such drastic change impairs its ability to provide ecosystem services and maintain biodiversity, ultimately impacting the wellbeing of all of the watershed.
As a community, our health depends on the health of our surrounding ecosystem. Now is the to work together to restore and maintain the Gulf.
The Gulf in Need
GOMI's Mission
GOMI’s mission is to educate and prepare the coming generations to steward wisely the environmental health of the Gulf of Maine bioregion. GOMI works closely with teachers, researchers, and community organizations to empower youth and prepare them to lead as citizen stewards through community-based stewardship.
COVID-19 Process
Due to COVID-19 we are adjusting a lot of our programming so that it can be carried out through distanced learning technologies. The emphasis is still on Community-Based Stewardship, but through our virtual projects and programs we are focusing on how to enhance inter-site collaboration, and showing students that we can have an impact and build community even when we need to rely on digital technology to do so.
Community-based stewardship (CBS) promotes experiential learning, rooted in and with the community. CBS focuses on the uniqueness of a specific place and emphasizes civic engagement - the act(s) of doing something concrete and beneficial to understand, improve, remedy, or protect the natural and cultural environment.
CBS is at the core of how GOMI works. To achieve our mission of stewarding wisely we:
- Partner with schools to establish Gulf of Maine courses, where students work with teachers and community partners to develop hands-on projects that deepen their understanding of how climate change affects their local environment.
- Have yearly conferences to discuss best practices in environmental education, and
- Involve the wider community through social media and our website, in order to expand the conversation to include other partners and build a sense of collective responsibility.
Click below to learn more about our adopter sites!
(Marsh aerial photo © Aber, Aber, and Valentine, 2009)
Community-Based Stewardship
