EASTON, Maine — Officials with the Francis Malcolm Institute have announced that Jeanie McGowan of Easton will be the new science/nature educator at the science center. She replaces Vaughn Martin, who recently accepted a teaching position with RSU 39.
McGowan was born, raised, and educated in Presque Isle. With a father from Ashland and a mother from Brooklyn, N.Y., she grew up in large cities, rural communities, and remote wilderness environments. Her parents supported her passion for art, music, gardening and reading. She was educated in our country’s museums and in the natural environments of North America’s woods, deserts, mountains, and oceans. Natural history was a constant focus for hands-on learning and skill building that instilled in her a lifelong quest to learn and to share and protect the natural world.
McGowan spent many years in the Southwest, and began her museum “career” as a volunteer in a small history museum in Prescott, Ariz. She was also co-manager of the large, city-owned Savannah History Museum in Georgia.
In 1991, McGowan returned to Maine to raise her daughter. She worked while attending university and graduated from the University of Maine at Presque Isle with a degree focused on environmental geology with a minor in art.
McGowan was executive director at the Nylander Museum of Natural History in Caribou for 13 years and was an educational coordinator at the Northern Maine Museum of Science on the UMPI campus. She designed and implemented the museum’s Library of Traveling Trunks Program – a collection of 20-plus hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) educational trunks offering classroom materials and lesson plans to educators.
McGowan worked with UMPI Professor Kevin McCartney and many volunteers on a large, multi-community project – the Maine Solar System Model – one of the world’s largest single-scale models of the Solar System. She is currently the Astronomy and Space Science rural education coordinator for the NASA New Horizons Mission to Pluto and Beyond, a 9.5 year mission ending Phase One in 2015.
She designed an annual Planet Head Day science education fundraiser event in February at the University to benefit a local cancer support group called C-A-N-C-E-R.
McGowan has offered many workshops and presentations for UMPI Seniors Achieving Great Education, Aroostook Gifted and Talented and University summer youth programs, the Aroostook Band of Micmacs Education Department, and the Presque Isle Boys and Girls Club.
“My wish for all children is for them to have the opportunity to understand and appreciate the wonders of their natural environment, to develop stewardship through their experiences, and to protect and preserve our Earth for generations to come,” said McGowan.