Designing the Future: An Interdisciplinary Applied Learning Project

Isi Muñoz | Rural Youth Organizer: Hancock County

For five months students and teachers at the Deer Isle-Stonington High School learned about and developed proposals on local climate change issues in their community, such as sea level rise and the impacts on infrastructure after winter storms. This project was launched in November 2024 with a daylong learning day. Starting at 8:30am the students gathered at the REACH theater where all the staff, partners, organizers and a couple of volunteers from College of the Atlantic met them to begin the launch of Designing the Future. A clip from NEWS Center Maine of the 2024 devastating winter storm was shown to introduce the challenge of: “How did your community experience the January 2024 winter storms and how can we build resilience in the face of climate change?”

Following this video students hear from: the Deer Isle-Stonington High School principal, Ms Rebecca Gratz, where she talked about the inspiration for the project and its goals; Former Maine State Representative, Genevieve McDonald, who gave context for climate impact on causeways and the need for the redesign of several projects on the island; Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Gayle Bowness and Stephanie Sun, who introduced the data collection process; Technology Director for the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, James Rutter, who described the resources available at Haystack to use in designing the models; and lastly, Healthy Acadia’s Youth Community Health Coordinator, Andrew Simon, who explained next steps as students prepare to gather in groups in classrooms before leaving for each of their site-visits. 

The whole high school student body got divided into the 5 groups which would continue to work together on their projects for the next following five months. After this first launch and connection with the local community the high school hosted assemblies on related topics over the next several months. Some of the speakers the students were introduced to included: 

• Linda Nelson, Economic and Community Development Director for the Town of Stonington and co-chair at the Governor’s Office Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission – topic of resilience

• Will Steinharter, founder and lead guide of Osprey's Echo Sea Kayaking, a company specializing in kayak tours of the Stonington Archipelago – topic of climate change’s impact in local eco-tourism

The whole project culminated in a STEM week this past March 2025. This project brought together 90 students, 45 teachers and 14 community members in addition to a vibrant audience at the final presentations. 

Throughout the whole project students got introduced to several different tools that help us gather information or design solutions related to climate change. For example, they worked closely with the Sea Level Rise ArcGIS map from the Gulf of Maine, where they explored what their locations will look like with different degrees of sea level rise (ranging from 1.2 feet to 10.9). 

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

During STEM week some of the students assigned to the “designers” role attended a workshop with James Rutter at the Haystack FabLab where they learned about the role of designing as a tool for climate mitigation. All the students brought their ideas to the lab and alongside the FabLab’s experts were able to create 3D designs of their prototypes to include these on their final presentations to the community. Some of these proposals included the rise of Stonington’s main street, as well as the Sunshine causeway and the design of waves breaker for the winter storms. 

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Some of the students’ proposals that were presented at the final community presentations at the Deer Isle-Stonington High School included the following topics: 

• A Resilient Redesign – Reimagining Greenhead Lobster

• Keeping Moose Island Afloat – Additional breakwater infrastructure, reallocation of machinery

• Sunshine Causeway Reforms – Wave breaker proposal

• Stonington Main Street: Sink or Swim? – Seawall allocation

• Lily Pond – new dam and plumbing infrastructure 

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

Photos: Anna Finocchiaro

Photo: Anna Finocchiaro

This is the first time that Isi worked closely with an educational institution as a main host of her Community Resilience Envisioning events. As she describes it: “Working so closely with the high school principal and extracurricular coordinator for almost a year to develop an agenda that will not only bring forward a climate justice educational opportunity to their students, but that will adapt to their community’s needs and interest, was unique and powerful. I look forward to continuing these types of partnerships. Students responded incredibly positively to this huge challenge and the community seemed pleased to have the next generation thinking over these huge issues”.

To learn more about the process of developing this project and the work behind the scenes, please check out the video above where Andrew and Isi bring you into a debrief conversation of what our partnership has looked like.