Welcome to the Morton Centre
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Our Mission Statement
Our vision is to create a learning centre. To achieve this, we are working to develop a long-term integrated teaching and research program; promote continuous, hands-on learning for students as well as the community, and create a fully sustainable field centre.
Our Centre
The Morton Centre has been designed to promote an understanding of the environment we live in, how it affects our lives, and how our human activities impact the environment. The field station acts as a base from which students can examine the geological, chemical, and biological diversity around them and monitor changes observed over time. The station enables innovative learning through honours thesis research and hands on education in environmental science labs and field schools.
Currently the Morton Centre is focusing on collecting baseline data using Environment Canada’s protocol Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN) from which other research will branch out from. Research has been focused into five areas of study: Biodiversity & Ecosystems, Earth Systems, Social Ecology, Environmental Conditions Monitoring, and Applied Sustainability.
The Centre is also developing its operational framework to continually undertake initiatives to become fully sustainable biophysically, financially, and socially. This initiative has included water and energy management rules, composting, and organic gardening. The Morton Centre is also looking into renewable energy resources, better waste management using composting toilets, and building green.
The Morton Centre is also developing methods with which to share knowledge with the greater community; including Acadia University faculty and students as well as the general public particularly those of Lunenburg county and the Heckman’s Island community. This will be done through summer gatherings during which community members can voice their thoughts on how the Morton Centre can contribute to their communities. Also, a summer lecture series open to the public will involve hands on environmental education on a broad number of topics. Future goals include hosting summer camps, and creating an interactive display area with information on the history of the area, current and previous research conducted at the centre, and relevant information on current environmental topics.
We at the Morton Centre look forward to bringing together people of all ages to share knowledge, monitor and understand the environment we live in, and conduct our lives in a socially and ecologically responsible manner.
The Property
The Morton Centre is located on Heckman’s Island near Lunenburg on the south shore of Nova Scotia. Originally an active farm, the property is approximately 99 acres in size, with a large tract of mixed coniferous and deciduous forest, several large pasture fields, fresh water ponds, a salt marsh, and over a kilometre and a half of shoreline. Currently there are two houses on the property, a large farm house and a smaller summer house, as well as various barns and sheds. A comprehensive infrastructure development plan for the Center is currently underway to provide better housing and lab facilities.
