NN History, 2010 (Season 2): Primate Adventures, a Thousand Books, Great Women Naturalists, 6.8 Billion Mouths to Feed...and More

IN 2010 THE NATURALIST'S NOTEBOOK TOOK HUGE STEPS IN ITS EVOLUTION. We more fully opened all three floors in our Seal Harbor building, had a longer season (16 weeks, starting in June), attracted twice as many visitors, ran multiple art and nature workshops and events (among them an Acadia National Park art/photo hike), added one of New England's best natural-history book collections (more than 1,000 titles, assembled by botanist Tom Vining), debuted our updated-each-day world-population chalkboard (human population being the single biggest factor affecting the natural environment), collaborated with local children, artists and naturalists, expanded our range of shop-and-think merchandise, engaged a primate-loving visitor from the Jane Goodall Institute, mapped the state of life in the world's oceans, constructed the Tree of Life in a staircase, were honored to be included in "50 Things to Do In Maine This Summer" by the Bangor Daily News, gave people a chance to Facebook a number of extinct species from their human ancestry, sold a DNA necktie to a man whose scientist daughter would years later help us with a Mars project, challenged visitors to climb every mountain on Maine's Mount Desert Island (some did), met and worked with three wonderful students from College of the Atlantic (thanks, Haley, Eli and Sarah!) and crowned a new Sweet 16 Honey-Tasting Tournament champion, Maine Wild Raspberry. It was a good year.