The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability

The Editorial Board is proud to present Issue 3 of Spire, one which includes a range of work centered on the theme of environmental conservation and sustainability relevant to the Maine community and beyond. Staying true to the journal’s purpose, these pieces demonstrate a depth of engagement with the theme that continues to be both […]

Thomas E. Stone1 1Husson University, 1 College Circle, Bangor, ME 04401 ABSTRACT Heat pump water heaters extract energy from the surrounding air and transfer that energy to a water tank in order to heat the water. This is a very efficient process compared with more common hot water heating methods, and can be used to […]

Average daily electrical energy use (kilowatt-hours per day, or kWh/day) for each month in the five years prior to installing the HPWH and for the five years after installation. YEAR MONTH ENERGY.USE DAYS 2008 august 640 30 2008 september 653 29 2008 october 776 31 2008 november 895 31 2008 december 922 33 2009 january […]

Marianna Mead1 1College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine. SUMMARY I created this bullet journal as part of my work as a Sustainable Food Systems Research Collaborative (SFSRC) fellow with the Sweet Spot Project during the summer of 2018. The Sweet Spot Project is a USDA-funded project on maple producers and beekeepers that involves the […]

Lydia Horne, Brieanne Berry, Anna McGinn, Sandesh Shrestha, Brooke Hafford-MacDonald, & Sara Lowden University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469 ABSTRACT As authors, we are familiar with the “publish or perish” mentality often used to describe academic writing. Despite the centrality of writing to the academic world, writing can often present significant challenges especially given this increasing pressure to […]

Rachel E. Church Cyanotype is one of the oldest photographic processes, invented by John Herschel in 1842. Its name references the Greek “cyan,” meaning “dark-blue impression”. The process involves coating paper with a light-sensitive combination of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. Once the paper is dry, either a photographic negative (which produces a photograph) […]

Tatiana Vanaria The sustainable community in Maine pertains to creating connections and unifying people to the natural world. It’s fairly simple to get lost in the busy lives of our new up and go culture, and staying aware of the environmental elements that are substantially given to us can be quite difficult. Farmers in Maine […]

Jessica Rule and Samantha Moore   If you live in Maine, you probably know that the first defense to feeling cold in your home is to put on another layer, maybe some socks or a sweater, rather than to turn up the heat. This is a reality of growing up and living in this beautiful […]