Search Results

Keywords: natural history

Historical Items

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Item 135796

Portland Society for Natural History building, ca. 1862

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1862 Location: Portland Media: Ink on paper

Item 135797

AR Stone’s Portland Society for Natural History membership form, 1866

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1866 Location: Portland Media: Ink on paper

Item 135727

Leatherback turtle display at the Portland Society of Natural History, ca. 1965

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1965 Location: Portland Media: Photographic print

Tax Records

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Item 49985

Assessor's Record, 18-28 Elm Street, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Portland Natural History Society Use: Land only

Architecture & Landscape

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Item 111663

York Institute, Saco, 1926

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1925–1926 Location: Saco Client: York Institute Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

Online Exhibits

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Exhibit

CODE RED: Climate, Justice & Natural History Collections

Explore topics around climate change by reuniting collections from one of the nation's earliest natural history museums, the Portland Society of Natural History. The exhibition focuses on how museums collect, and the role of humans in creating changes in society, climate, and biodiversity.

Exhibit

Designing Acadia

For one hundred years, Acadia National Park has captured the American imagination and stood as the most recognizable symbol of Maine’s important natural history and identity. This exhibit highlights Maine Memory content relating to Acadia and Mount Desert Island.

Exhibit

Holding up the Sky: Wabanaki people, culture, history, and art

Learn about Native diplomacy and obligation by exploring 13,000 years of Wabanaki residence in Maine through 17th century treaties, historic items, and contemporary artworks—from ash baskets to high fashion. Wabanaki voices contextualize present-day relevance and repercussions of 400 years of shared histories between Wabanakis and settlers to their region.

Site Pages

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Site Page

Mount Desert Island: Shaped by Nature - A Short History of Mount Desert Island

"… been seen as a place of abundant resources and natural beauty, where hardy people worked together to carve life and a community out of the rugged…"

Site Page

Biddeford History & Heritage Project - HISTORY

"Two long thin fingers of land create a large, naturally protected pool. Saco River from old White's Wharf, Biddeford, 2010."

Site Page

Mount Desert Island: Shaped by Nature - Beginnings

"… traditional knowledge, language, and other natural sciences create a picture of Wabanaki life here before the arrival of Europeans."

My Maine Stories

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Story

From Naturalists to Environmentalists
by Andy Beahm

The beginnings of Maine Audubon in the Portland Society of Natural History

Story

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers
by Doug Hitchcox, Staff Naturalist at Maine Audubon

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Portland Society of Natural History Collections

Story

Lifelong Lepidopterist
by E. Christopher Livesay

Chris Livesay collects and studies butterflies.

Lesson Plans

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Lesson Plan

Bicentennial Lesson Plan

Wabanaki Studies: Stewarding Natural Resources

Grade Level: 3-5 Content Area: Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This lesson plan will introduce elementary-grade students to the concepts and importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous Knowledge (IK), taught and understood through oral history to generations of Wabanaki people. Students will engage in discussions about how humans can be stewards of the local ecosystem, and how non-Native Maine citizens can listen to, learn from, and amplify the voices of Wabanaki neighbors to assist in the future of a sustainable environment. Students will learn about Wabanaki artists, teachers, and leaders from the past and present to help contextualize the concepts and ideas in this lesson, and learn about how Wabanaki youth are carrying tradition forward into the future.

Lesson Plan

The Fur Trade in Maine

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12, Postsecondary Content Area: Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This lesson presents an overview of the history of the fur trade in Maine with a focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, on how fashion influenced that trade, and how that trade impacted Indigenous peoples and the environment.

Lesson Plan

Bicentennial Lesson Plan

Becoming Maine: The District of Maine's Coastal Economy

Grade Level: 3-5 Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson plan will introduce students to the maritime economy of Maine prior to statehood and to the Coasting Law that impacted the separation debate. Students will examine primary documents, take part in an activity that will put the Coasting Law in the context of late 18th century – early 19th century New England, and learn about how the Embargo Act of 1807 affected Maine in the decades leading to statehood.