The best back yard in town Historic light station off Boothbay

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If Ben Jones invites you to camp out at his place this summer, take him up on it. The youngster has what is arguably one of the most beautiful back yards on the Eastern Seaboard – a 5-acre island with its own lighthouse off Boothbay Harbor.

During the summer, Ben and his two older siblings live on Burnt Island with their mom, Elaine Jones, while dad Jeremy comes down on weekends.

As director of marine education for the state, Elaine Jones oversees the Marine Resources Aquarium in West Boothbay. She also is working to restore the lighthouse property so it can be the educational and recreational facility the Department of Marine Resources envisioned when the agency acquired the Burnt Island light station from the federal government in recent years. The government has turned over several coastal lighthouses to various organizations under the State of Maine Lights Program in order to help preserve the historic structures.

Ben’s fifth-grade class from Weatherbee School in Hampden recently spent three days and two nights on Burnt Island doing the things kids love to do – eating voraciously, exploring and getting into games of volleyball and flashlight tag.

But the stay on the island was also an intensive learning experience for the 20 pupils, accompanied by teacher Sue O’Brien and several adult chaperones.

In small groups, the visitors climbed the stairs of the lighthouse built in 1821. They looked at the Fresnel lens in the center of the tower, and peered out through the lantern room’s different shades of glass that affect what the light looks like to boaters – mostly red panes, with two clear strips allowing white light to pass through and show where the lanes of safety are on the water.

Burnt Island’s moniker has an interesting origin, one which explains why Maine has several islands of the same name.

“It used to be common practice to burn islands, then bring sheep over to graze. On an island, they didn’t need a fence,” Jones said.

The children also learned about the keepers who lived on the island with their families before the light was automated. But chiefly, they spent their time in activities that built upon what they had learned this past year in science classes.

Seated on rocks by the shore, the pupils waited for Jones to distribute paper, scissors, wide pieces of clear tape, small containers of sand, and inexpensive handheld microscopes.

Deftly, the youngsters cut six round holes in the paper, and covered the holes on one side with the clear tape. Then they sprinkled samples of the different types of sand on the sticky side of the tape, finishing up by sealing the sand with another layer of tape.

“Now you’ve made yourself microscope slides,” Jones said.

Jillian Leeman positioned the holes in her card over a piece of white paper next to a piece of black paper – for contrast – and leaned over to peer through the microscope, her arms and legs sprawling over the edges of the large rock for balance.

“There’s a lot of rocks, white and brown and black. It looks like a ton of rocks,” the girl exclaimed, her eye fastened to the microscope.

The clear crystals were quartz, Jones explained. “That means it comes from an old beach.” The sand was from Bar Harbor.

Together, the educator and the youngsters puzzled over the origins of other sand samples from the Caribbean, Florida, Prince Edward Island and Hawaii.

They also used magnets on loose grains of sand to test which contained iron – moving the magnet made the particles “dance” – and added a drop of vinegar to see which sand would make bubbles.

“If it fizzes or bubbles, there’s a reaction going on,” Jones said. “Acid plus shell material – calcium – you have carbon dioxide given off.”

Sand from Maine beaches is full of shells, the pupils decided, not that they needed to use vinegar to know that. The shore around Burnt Island is peppered with bluish mussel shells among the rocks.

Next up was a tour of the island with the Rock Detective herself, Ruth Deike of Dresden. A retired geologist, Deike runs the nonprofit organization that offers materials and programs for pupils learning earth sciences.

O’Brien has a Rock Detective kit in her Hampden classroom, so her pupils were familiar with the interests of the ebullient Deike, who at times jumped on rocks to make points about the makeup of the Earth in this part of the world.

The youngsters learned many technical points during their stay, showing a keen grasp of terms such as terrigenous – made from the erosion of land. But they also had fun with activities such as “fish printing.”

Kyle Perkins dazzled the chaperones with his effort, brushing green fabric paint across a real fish, then adding purple to the fins. Then he used the fish to make an imprint on a bright white cotton T-shirt, already preshrunk for the occasion.

O’Brien followed her student’s lead, choosing the same color scheme for her own shirt before spreading it on the grass to dry. Each youngster chose a mackerel or flounder for the printmaking.

Will Sherrill had a good time decorating his shirt.

“I also liked the scavenger hunt,” he said. “We talked about the history of lighthouses and went tide pooling. We found sea stars, crabs, periwinkles, mussels.”

The first day, the kids each took five periwinkles and placed them on the beach, surrounded by a circle of rocks. By the next morning, they found, some of the snails had moved, using the foot protruding from beneath their shells.

“Mine moved 4 feet, 7 inches,” Sherrill said.

The winning periwinkle, moving a total of 42 feet, belonged to Jennifer Weiland.

The three-day visit by the pupils went smoothly, but planning and fund-raising took a year.

“They earned close to $400 in bake sales,” O’Brien said. A total of $1,400 was raised, enough to cover the bus ride from Hampden, food, T-shirts and the water taxi bringing the youngsters to the island.

Eventually, Jones hopes, such visits will be a regular event, but this excursion was a pilot project that will help her know what is needed to make Burnt Island more of an educational site.

Records show that Andrew Reed owned the island after the Revolution, and the U.S. Government purchased it in 1808 from Jacob Auld and Joseph McCobb. The cost was $150.

Before automation, Jones explained, lighthouse keepers used to have to come to the tower every six hours to wind the clockwork mechanism that rotated the light.

The light was electrified in 1961, and fully automated in 1988. The Coast Guard still has jurisdiction over the light and the foghorn.

For educational purposes, the location of Burnt Island is advantageous. It’s just one mile from the new lab facility and the aquarium on the mainland.

The aquarium offers not only fish tanks and a touch tank with starfish, urchins, sea cucumbers and other creatures, but a separate tank allowing people to reach in to pet small sharks.

For Jones, there is a special pleasure in bringing together the present and the past.

She has studied the history of the island and the lighthouse, the better to plan for the museum that will open there one day. The research includes learning all she can about the lighthouse keepers.

“Joseph Muise brought his family there in 1936, and stayed until 1951,” she said. “We brought back the living children of the keepers in 1999 to give us the history.”

A proposed tour of the island would include a living history program based on the Muises, as well as a segment presented by natural history interpreters. Jones is looking for furnishings that would help return the keeper’s house to the period of the 1950s.

“Last year we all did external restoration. We got a $20,000 New Century grant funded by the Legislature – that’s a really good program,” Jones said.

Outdoor Heritage funds, provided by those who purchase conservation lottery tickets, have helped, as have taxes paid by those who buy sport-fishing equipment in Maine. Funds helped put in running water and a septic system, and another project will allow for more boats to dock. Currently, most visitors kayak to the island.

Living on the island all summer certainly is a unique experience for the Jones youngsters. Tamara and Gregory will kayak to the mainland daily for summer jobs.

Like their parents, the kids have contributed their muscle power to clearing brush and other activities.

“Once in awhile my mother tells me to cut seaweed,” explained Ben, mentioning one of his least favorite chores.

“But you get to explore,” he added, “and I have lobster traps and a lobster license. I build sand castles and forts.”

The one real drawback, Ben said, is that his mother doesn’t allow TV or computer activities there. On the island, she wants the children to take advantage of nature.

Visits by families who lived on the island have impressed the boy.

“The McCulloughs came out. They used to be here. All they wanted to do was help,” he said. James McCullough was the keeper from 1958 to 1962.

Ben Jones is well aware that for all its challenges, living on an island each summer is a unique opportunity. He enjoyed the special visit by his classmates, and took part in the planned activities.

As for Ben’s mom, she grinned as the fifth-graders and chaperones swarmed over the beach, the rocks, the wooded areas of Burnt Island.

“This is my dream,” she said, “right here.”

For information on Burnt Island, write the Department of Marine Resources, P.O. Box 8, West Boothbay Harbor, Maine 04575; or check the Web site at www.state.me.us.dmr. For school field trip reservations at the aquarium in the fall or spring, call 633-9542. School and certified daycare groups are admitted free. For information on the Rock Detective programs and kits, write Rock Detective Geoscience Education, 593 Gardiner Road, Dresden Mills, Maine 04342, call 737-4612, or check the Web site at www.rockdetective.org.