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by Julia Rush

Sea to Trees is a podcast that tells the stories of the science happening in and around Acadia, from the rocky shoreline to the evergreen forests to the granite mountaintops.

In this season premiere episode of Sea to Trees we’ll travel to the largest freshwater wetland in Acadia National Park: the Great Meadow. Listen to learn more about the ongoing restoration of the Great Meadow, how soil coring can take us back in time to visualize a landscape thousands of years ago, and how an Indigenous approach to wetland restoration means restoring relationships and food sovereignty.

We’ll hear from Dr. Suzanne Greenlaw, an ecologist, writer, traditional harvester, post-doctoral scientist at Schoodic Institute and a citizen of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. We’ll hear about her role in the restoration, how soil coring can be applied as a restoration method, and what restoring this wetland means to her. Lauren Gibson, Wild Acadia Coordinator for Friends of Acadia and Dr. Chris Nadeau, Climate Change Adaptation Scientist at Schoodic Institute, will walk us through the challenges facing Great Meadow. And together we’ll take to the wetland to participate in a soil coring led by paleoecologist Andrea Nurse.

Three photo collage, featuring from left to right, 1) A team of National Park Service, Friends of Acadia and Schoodic Institute staff trek out into Great Meadow to assist Andrea Nurse in a soil coring. 2) The team pushes the metal corer into the wetland to collect a soil sample. 3) A look at the eight thousand year old glacial marine clay at the bottom of these soil cores.
From left to right: 1) A team of National Park Service, Friends of Acadia and Schoodic Institute staff trek out into Great Meadow to assist Andrea Nurse in a soil coring. 2) The team pushes the metal corer into the wetland to collect a soil sample. 3) A look at the eight thousand year old glacial marine clay at the bottom of these soil cores. Photos by NPS/Kaitlyn Chen

Illustrative graphic cover art for the podcast. Sea to Trees, which depicts a tree in the foreground, the intertidal zone in the mid ground, and ocean at the left with the horizon line off in the background. A cool color palette is used for the image - blues, deep greens, and grays.

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