PORTLAND, Maine — Sixth graders from Lewiston celebrated a milestone Thursday while getting immersed in a special field trip.
Students from the Montello School visited the Gulf of Maine Research Institute that morning. The institute sends a customized charter bus to pick up students for each field trip, and once it dropped off this latest group, it meant every single sixth grader in Lewiston had had a chance to go to the GMRI during the school year.
The LabVenture space that greets the students is massive and high-tech. There are touchscreen tables with microscopes attached to them, and a giant projection screen and surround sound.
The kids studied plankton and fish and gasped when Meredyth Sullivan and other staff brought out live lobsters to be measured and identified.
"We love seeing the excitement as they come in," Sullivan, the institute's program director said. The field trips and bus pickups are completely free to the schools, no matter from which corner of the state they come.
"It’s really important to us that cost not be a barrier for students to be able to have a scientific experience in their middle school years," she continued.
This trip was extra special because, as the kids’ teachers said, following the COVID-19 pandemic, this was likely just the second field trip any of them had ever been on.
Jennifer Labonte is the district's math and science curriculum specialist.
"There’s just so many memories that the kids make here," she smiled while students bustled around behind her. "They all talk about the bus ride because GMRI shows up with this giant bus that’s gorgeous, and the kids get super excited just to see the bus… To get them here and see the lobster, they’re gonna remember this forever."
Sullivan said the GMRI brought in 8,500 students over the past year.
Schools can sign up for field trips here.