Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Summer 2023 Programs and Events are Live for Registration

June 14, 2023

NANTUCKET, MA—The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA), your portal to Nantucket’s natural world, announced its schedule for another summer full of science education, research, and exploration of the sky, land, and sea of Nantucket Island through its award-winning Discovery Camp, robust summer programs, events, and the reopening of its properties.

 

On Monday, June 12, 2023, the MMA will reopen its Aquarium (28 Washington Street), Hinchman House Natural Science Museum (7 Milk Street), and Historic Mitchell House (1 Vestal Street). These properties will be open Monday-Friday from 10AM-4PM and Saturdays from 10AM-1PM. Tours (self-guided, except at the Mitchell House where visitors take guided tours) are available on a rolling basis throughout the day and do not require a reservation. An all-MMA properties pass ($22 Adult, $12 Children) provides admission to each property and can be purchased in-person upon entering the properties. A single entry to the Historic Mitchell House is available for $10 Adult, $8 Children. In addition to entry at the three properties, the property pass provides admission to a Stargazing Open Night, which must be registered for in advance online. Admission to all MMA properties is free for MMA Members.

 

Stargazing Open Nights at Loines Observatory (59 Milk Street Ext.) will begin on Monday, June 12and are offered on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at 9PM and 9:45PM and the admissions is part of the MMA site pass ($22 Adult, $12 Children, free for Members, and free for those already holding an all-MMA properties pass). You must register for Open Nights in advance online at: www.mariamitchell.org/calendar for these 45-minute Observatory programs. The MMA Astronomy staff will lead constellation tours and guide visitors through viewing stations inside and outside the observatory domes. Participants will have a chance to view astronomical objects through our historic 8-inch Alvan Clark refractor and our modern 24-inch research telescope. Get a chance to view the Moon, planets, star clusters, nebulae, and even other galaxies!

 

Summer 2023 Program offerings, across our sites, include: Maria Mitchell and the Daring Daughters of Nantucket, Four Centuries Domestic Tour, Family Sailor’s Valentines, Preserving Monuments of our Ancestors, Oika for Earthlings, Ravenous Reptiles, Nature Story Hour, Bug Bonanza, Saturday Science, Feeding Frenzy, Beach Biology Field Trip, Marine Ecology Field Trip, Night Marine Ecology Field Trip, Marine Story Hour, Owl Prowl, Nantucket Bird Walk, Earth Story Walk, Full Moon Walk, Nature Based Meditation, Sunrise Beach Meditation, Sunrise Yoga Flow and others. These programs will be offered throughout the summer and are now open for registration. New program offerings this year include Oika for Artists, Big History/James Webb Space Telescope, Full Moon Walk, Nature Based Meditation, Sunrise Beach Meditation, Sunrise Yoga Flow, and our Free community Birding with Ginger Andrews. For the full schedule of programs and registration information, please visit www.mariamitchell.org/calendar

 

Other events and program offerings this year include the Maria Mitchell Birthday Party Open House on August 1, Astrophotography with Charity Grace Mofsen, the Horseshoe Crab Solstice Walk, Horseshoe Crab Community Science Surveys, Green Crab Surveys, the Celestial Stakeout at Loines Observatory, Green Crab Week’s Green Crab Derby, and our complete Artist-In-Residence program with individual special workshops and events.

 

Our informative and popular Science Speaker Series, a complimentary bi-monthly lecture series, will continue throughout the summer from 7-8PM and will be presented via Zoom. The summer lineup will feature over a dozen scientists from Nantucket and beyond. A special thank you to our lead sponsor Bank of America, in addition to the White Elephant Hotels and Resorts and Cisco Brewers of Nantucket who also make this program accessible to all.

 

The MMA’s award-winning Discovery Camp kicks off on June 20th. Offered weekly for children ages 5-16, this summer there are ten weeks of our popular camps such as “Animal Signs & Senses,” “Amazing Adaptations,” “Coastal Resiliency and Nantucket Ecology,” “Cosmic & Climate Connections,” “Junior Historians - A walk through Nantucket,” and, “Junior Astronomers – Reaches of the Universe.” Visit https://www.mariamitchell.org/camp-programs to check availability and to register.

 

The Maria Mitchell Association was founded in 1902 to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. After she discovered a comet in 1847, Mitchell’s international fame led to many achievements and awards, including an appointment as the first female professor of astronomy at Vassar College. Maria Mitchell believed in “learning by doing” and today that philosophy is reflected in the MMA’s mission statement, programs, research projects, and other activities. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

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For Immediate Release

June 6, 2023

Contact: Jonelle Gurley,

jgurley@mariamitchell.org

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The Ancient Vine

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 27, 2025
This is what our landscaper for MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House this is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Lily of the Valley

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
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