UMaine Calendar

Summer University
2025-05-30, 2025-05-29, 2025-05-28, 2025-05-27, 2025-05-26, 2025-05-23, 2025-05-22, 2025-05-21 and 2 more dates | ME
Click here to view the full 2024–25 Academic Year Calendar.

SAT Prep Matters
2025-05-29 18:00 - 19:30, 2025-05-22 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Online
Program Description
Online SAT Prep Matters and SAT Boot Camp are new courses designed by Dr Mary Smyth, a long-time SAT coach in the Midcoast. College-bound high school juniors who plan to take the SAT test will benefit from learning about the new format and updated content of the new SAT.
“I am actually a fan of the new SAT,” says Dr. Smyth. She explained the test is shorter (2 hours 15 minutes total) and questions are individualized to each student. The digital approach allows the test to “react” to the student’s prior answers and change the difficulty level. The reading passages are shorter and there is a combined section with both reading and grammar questions included. The test also has a visible built-in timer and a calculator and graphing program available for all the math questions.
The new test will require a whole new approach to studying and practicing. While there are free resources available on Khan Academy, most students will need guidance in understanding how to approach the test. For instance, students can attempt a math problem by using any of several techniques: graph the problem, write out the algebra steps, or try the answers to see which one fits. Knowing how to navigate between those options will give students more strategies and can increase their scores.
“With this new SAT format, I am amazed how much teaching I can do to help students solidify knowledge they have been exposed to in high school, “ says Smyth. “Students have to be able to use what they have learned to solve problems. That is the name of the game in the SAT.”
Dr. Mary Smyth’s SAT Boot Camp has been used successfully to prepare students to take the SAT for many years. Students attend class every day during a school vacation week and practice taking short sections of the test. Students are relaxed and well-rested, so they are able to absorb the lessons and practice at their best.
Dates and Times
February Boot Camp – PROGRAM FULL, REGISTRATION CLOSED
Feb. 18, 19, 20, and 21, 2025
5-6:30 p.m. ET
SAT Prep Matters
Thursdays May 8, 15, 22, and 29 and June 5, 2025 – Registration opens Feb. 1
6–7:30 p.m. ET
Modality
This dynamic program will be offered synchronously via Zoom—you’ll need access to a stable internet connection. There will be assignments between classes.
Program Benefits
Using lessons that she writes herself, Smyth has helped many students through their own hard work improve their SAT scores by 100-200 points.
Who Should Enroll
College-bound high school juniors who plan to take the SAT test.
Instructor
Dr. Mary Smyth

Education:
A.B. Biochemistry, Smith College M.D. University of Pennsylvania
Work History:
Watershed School Math Instructor
Middle School Math Team Coach
Gifted and Talented Math Instructor, SAD 5
Tutor, SAD 28 and CSD High School
Private tutoring, SAT and PSAT, ACT, IB Math, AP Calculus, GRE and GMAT prep, and individual support for school classwork grades 2-12
Health and parenting newsletter editor, writer
Private practice – pediatrician

Program Fee
Bootcamp: $300
Prep Matters May session: $350
Click here to apply for a need-based scholarship.
Class Capacity
8 participants
Accommodations
For more information or to request an accommodation contact um.continuinged@maine.edu, 207.581.3113.

Introduction to Freeze Drying at Home
2025-05-29 17:30 - 19:30 | UMaine Cooperative Extension Cumberland County, 75 Clearwater Drive, Suite 104, Falmouth, ME, 04105, United States
University of Maine Cooperative Extension will host an educational workshop providing an overview of the process of freeze drying food at home on Thursday, May 29, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Cumberland County office, 75 Clearwater Drive in Falmouth. This class is designed for individuals considering purchasing a freeze dryer or those looking to learn more about this method of food preservation.
Participants will gain a comprehensive overview of using a freeze dryer to create high-quality, long-lasting dried fruits, vegetables, snacks and complete meals. The workshop will cover the science behind freeze drying, the necessary equipment involved, and techniques for safely preparing and storing dried foods. Attendees will also have the opportunity to sample freeze-dried foods.
Registration is required; the cost is $10 per person. Register on the program webpage to receive the link and resources. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, contact Kate McCarty at 207.781.6099 or kate.mccarty@maine.edu.

Introduction to Freeze Drying at Home
2025-05-29 17:30 - 19:30 | 75 Clearwater Drive Falmouth, Maine United States, 75 Clearwater Drive, Falmouth, ME, 04105, United States
Considering buying a freeze dryer or just curious about the process? This educational workshop from UMaine Extension will provide an overview of using a freeze dryer at home to create high-quality, long-lasting dried fruits, vegetables, snacks, and meals. Participants will learn how freeze drying works, about the required equipment, and how to safely prepare and store foods for freeze drying. Samples will be provided.

Tractor Safety Workshop - Waldo County
2025-05-29 12:00 - 15:00 | Waldo County Gardens, 685 Swan Lake Avenue, Swanville, ME, United States
University of Maine Cooperative Extension is hosting a tractor safety workshop from noon–3 p.m. on Thursday, May 29, 2025, at Waldo County Gardens, 685 Swan Lake Avenue in Swanville.
This 3-hour on-farm workshop, presented by UMaine Extension’s Farm and Tractor Safety Team, will include a review of safety risks when operating a tractor and steps for avoiding accidents. Instructors will demonstrate safe and efficient implement attachment and use. Participants will also learn about tractor parts and basic maintenance for the safety and longevity of the equipment. The program is designed for youth, farm workers and new tractor owners to increase their awareness of the risks associated with operating equipment and the basics of safe operation.
Cost of the workshop is $20. Register online at the event webpage or by phone at 207.342.5971. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, contact Billiejo Pendleton at billiejo.pendleton@maine.edu.

The Met: Live in HD – Salome
2025-05-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Collins Center for the Arts, 2 Flagstaff Road, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive, Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light.
What is The Met: Live in HD Series?
The Metropolitan Opera’s Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning series, The Met: Live in HD, lets fans immerse themselves in opera up to 10 times a year. Up to 12 cameras capture the onstage drama, as well as the fascinating backstage action, and transmit it from New York City to the Collins Center for the Arts and other venues across the globe.
Learn before you go!
Please join us for free informational sessions, held prior to each opera. You’re invited to attend to learn about the upcoming opera and meet up with other opera fans. Whether you have been to a zillion operas or have never been – these sessions are for you!
Thursday, May 22 at 5 pm at Orono Public Library
Tuesday, May 27 at 4:15 pm at Dirigo Pines

Soil Health Lunch and Learn Series: Overview of cover cropping best practices
2025-05-27 12:00 - 13:00 | https://calendar.umtraining.lv-o-wpc-dev.its.maine.edu/event/soil-health-lunch-and-learn-series/
University of Maine Cooperative Extension will present a 7-part online lunch and learn series intended to help farmers take their soil health to the next level. The sessions will be held from noon–1 p.m. on Tuesdays, May 27 to July 8.
The sessions are for farmers who have experience with soil health practices and want to build on those outcomes and benefits. Topics will include crop rotation considerations, advanced cover cropping techniques, enhanced soil amendment use and reduced tillage.
May 27: Overview of cover cropping best practices
June 3: Nutrient management with cover crops
June 10: Cover cropping planning tools and resources
June 17: Nutrient considerations with compost, manure and biochar
June 24: Interseeding cover crops
July 1: Tractor scale reduced tillage approaches
July 8: Open soil health discussion and brainstorming on participant scenarios
Registration is required to receive the webinar link. Suggested registration fee of $5 per session or $25 for all 7 sessions. Fees are non-refundable; this may be considered on a case-by-case basis. For more information and to register visit the Cumberland County Upcoming Events webpage.
To request a reasonable accommodation, contact Sarah Davenport, sarah.davenport@maine.edu, 207-781-6099. Receiving requests for accommodation at least seven days before the program provides a reasonable amount of time to meet the request, however, all requests will be considered.

Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills
2025-05-27 09:30 - 16:30, 2025-05-20 09:30 - 16:30 | Online
Note: If your employer is a compact member of the Harold Alfond Center for the Advancement of Maine’s Workforce, you may be eligible to take this program at a reduced cost. Click here to learn more.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
In your professional or volunteer work, have you ever needed to:

help a new group get started?
guide a group to solve a problem?
help a group deal with a conflict?

Skills for working with groups don’t usually come naturally and are not routinely taught. If you have ever worked with a group and wished you had more practice or skill, Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills is for you.
Are you involved with municipal boards, non-profit committees, staff teams or community members that need to produce results? Are these groups as successful at getting the job done as you’d like? This training can help you get great results.
Fun, creative, and thought-provoking, the Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 1 curriculum is a dynamic and comprehensive multi-session facilitation training series full of activities, practice opportunities, and potential aha! moments.
PROGRAM DATES & TIMES
May 13, 20, and 27, 2025 – Registration opens February 1st
9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. ET
For those looking to build their virtual facilitation skills, Kristen Grant also offers Building Your Virtual Facilitation Skills. Learn more here.

MODALITY
This program will be offered in-person at the University of Maine at Augusta campus.
Facilitation is a skill that can only be mastered through practice. With this fact in mind, opportunities for training participants to practice facilitation are central to the training design. Each participant will sign up and prepare to facilitate an activity with a small group during one session.
PROGRAM BENEFITS
Participants in this training will:

build competence in essential facilitation skills and knowledge
actively engage and collaborate with other participants
apply a variety of processes for guiding groups to useful outcomes
practice facilitating and receiving feedback in a supportive environment.

TOPICS COVERED
Session One: Facilitation Basics

An Introduction to Facilitation Core Values of Facilitation
Working Agreements
Contracting
Decision-making Options
Stages of Group Development
Facilitation Guiding Principles and Practices
Behaviors that Hinder and Help Groups
Developing a Meeting Design

Session Two: Facilitation in Action

Achieving Desired Outcomes
Generating Ideas, Narrowing Ideas and Action Planning
Identifying Core Facilitation Practices
Recognizing and Redirecting Difficult Group Situations
Assessing Your Facilitation Strengths and Weaknesses

Session Three: Facilitation Challenges & Opportunities

Using the Left-Hand Column
Designing Interventions and Making Interventions
Using the Diagnosis-Intervention Cycle
Clarifying Circle Consulting Method
Opening and Closing Ideas and Other Resources
Evaluation, and Celebration

WHO SHOULD ENROLL
This course is designed to benefit:

Analysts
Community-based groups
Consultants
Educators/Teachers
Executives
Managers
Municipal Officials
Nonprofit organizations
Trainers
Sales Professionals
Others whose professional and/or community work involves working with groups to achieve results.

The creation of a cohesive group is a focus of the series. It is expected that if you join the training, you will make a commitment to attend all three sessions and participate as fully as possible. If it’s not possible for you to make that commitment at this time, please consider waiting to take the training.
Not sure if this program is right for you? Contact us at um.continuinged@maine.edu or 207.581.3113 and we can help you figure it out.
INSTRUCTOR
Kristen Grant, Senior Extension Program Manager, Coastal Community Resilience and DEI Leader (she/her)
Kristen’s work focuses on the interactions between the people, and ecosystems of the coast. Her work includes a range of activities to build the capacity of coastal communities to plan and adapt for their future, such as building community engagement and facilitation skills, considering housing options, addressing coastal access and waterfront development issues, and understanding erosion trends and planning for coastal hazards. To this work, Kristen brings a Master of Science degree focused on Environmental Education, and has an extensive background in outreach education and community development, as well as nearly a decade of experience in training facilitators.

PROGRAM FEE
$400
Click here to apply for a need-based scholarship.

CLASS CAPACITY
22 participants

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS
20 hours / 2 CEUs are available.
Certificate for completing the entirety of this program.
If you’d like to receive CEUs for participating in this course, please note this in your registration via our online store.
A micro-credential will also be available.

ACCOMMODATIONS
For more information or to request an accommodation contact um.continuinged@maine.edu, 207.581.3113.

IMRC Center Tour
2025-05-27 09:00 - 10:00 | Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center (IMRC), Stewart Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Join IMRC Center staff for a general tour of the facility’s event space, classrooms, common areas, audiovisual studios, and maker labs. The tour is anticipated to last approximately 45 minutes. Offered on the 4th Tuesday of each month.
Guests of any background, including UMaine students, faculty, and staff, community group representatives, business representatives, and members of the public may join a tour. Groups larger than 20, or individuals and small groups for whom the scheduled times are not convenient, please contact the IMRC Center to schedule an individualized visit. Register for a tour.

ELO: Ticket to the Moon
2025-05-25 16:00 - 17:00, 2025-05-18 16:00 - 17:00 | Versant Power Astronomy Center, 167 Rangeley Rd., Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Join us in the dome with a myriad of lights and visual effects as we journey into and through space with the Electric Light Orchestra! Featuring songs such as Mr. Blue Sky, Livin’ Thing, Starlight, and more! You will be transported to a higher dimension with this rock supergroup.
Tickets are $9 for general admission.
Music programs may contain explicit lyrics, and are intended for adult audiences. All music programs may contain bright flashing lights and fast-moving images, which have been known to trigger seizures with those with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Tickets may be purchased online, by phone at 207.581.1341, or at our ticket box office prior to the show.

Earth, Moon, and Sun
2025-05-25 14:00 - 15:00, 2025-05-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Versant Power Astronomy Center, 167 Rangeley Rd., Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Earth, Moon, & Sun is a fast-paced full dome demonstration of lunar phases, eclipses, day and night, the sun and other puzzling events with the help of a confused coyote. This program beautifully illustrates basic concepts like moon phases and seasons. Based on the trickster of Native American lore, Coyote is constantly corrected in his misunderstandings of how things work. A live tour of the Maine sky and its beautiful constellations completes this micro-unit of astronomy.
Watch the trailer here!

Tickets for planetarium programs are $7 for Adults, $6 for UMaine Students/Veterans/Senior Citizens, and $5 for children under 12. Click here to view our calendar.
Tickets may be purchased online, by phone at 207.581.1341, or at our ticket box office prior to the show.

Cumberland County Master Gardener Plant Sale
2025-05-24 09:00 - 12:00 | Tidewater Gardens, 200 Presumpscot Point Rd, Falmouth, ME, United States
The 30th annual University of Maine Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Sale in Cumberland County will be held on Saturday, May 24 from 9 a.m. to noon at UMaine Gardens at Tidewater Farm, 200 Presumpscot Point Road, Falmouth.
Master Gardener Volunteers will be on hand to assist patrons with their plant selections and to offer growing tips. There will be a broad selection of organic vegetable seedlings, herb and annual seedlings, and native and pollinator plants for sale. Gently used garden tools and supplies, bags of local compost, raffle items, soft-serve by Maine Maple Creemee Co and tool sharpening by Wicked Sharp will also be available. This community-focused event will feature gardening demonstrations by Master Gardeners and kids activities led by 4-H staff.
All proceeds from the plant sale directly support community-based horticulture projects, which rely on the expertise and volunteer time of Master Gardener Volunteers. These projects are located across Cumberland County and include large undertakings such as demonstration gardens, Maine Harvest for Hunger initiatives, therapeutic gardens, school gardens, youth programs and more.
For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, visit the program website or contact Pamela Hargest, pamela.hargest@maine.edu, 207.781.6099.

The Dark Matter Mystery: Exploring a Cosmic Secret
2025-05-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Versant Power Astronomy Center, 167 Rangeley Rd., Orono, ME, 04469, United States
What keeps Galaxies together? What are the building blocks of the Universe? What makes the Universe look the way it looks today? Researchers all around the world try to answer these questions. We know today that approximately a quarter of the Universe is filled with a mysterious glue: Dark Matter. We know that it is out there. But we have no idea what it is made out of.
This planetarium show takes you on the biggest quest of contemporary astrophysics. You will see why we know that Dark Matter exists, and how this search is one of the most challenging and exciting searches science has to offer. Join the scientists on their hunt for Dark Matter with experiments in space and deep underground. Will they be able to solve the Dark Matter Mystery?
Watch the trailer here!

Tickets for planetarium programs are $7 for Adults, $6 for UMaine Students/Veterans/Senior Citizens, and $5 for children under 12. Click here to view our calendar.
Tickets may be purchased online, by phone at (207) 581-1341, or at our ticket box office prior to the show.

Grant Writing Certificate Program
2025-05-23 09:00 - 12:00, 2025-05-16 09:00 - 12:00 | Online
You have a lot on your plate. Between annual appeals, communications, virtual event planning and fundraising, you’re overwhelmed. And now you’ve been tasked with writing a grant and you don’t know where to start. Our online grant writing program can help!
This interactive online professional development program will teach you the basics of seeing a grant through a full cycle—from inception to completion. You’ll learn how to get your organization ready to apply for grants, where to find funders and funding opportunities, how to write the components of a grant and how to submit a successful application that has all the information funders want to see.
Using case studies, this program will focus on real-world grant applications. Comprehensive checklists and worksheets will guide you through every step of planning, researching, applying to and managing a grant—without missing a thing! You’ll also develop language specific to your organization that answers common grant questions.
The only thing you won’t learn in this program is how to celebrate securing a grant proposal. We figure you’ve got that one covered.

ServSafe® Course and Exam
2025-05-20 09:00 - 17:00 | 75 Clearwater Drive Falmouth, Maine United States, 75 Clearwater Drive, Falmouth, ME, 04105, United States
University of Maine Cooperative Extension can help you achieve your ServSafe® Food Protection Manager Certification. This nationally-recognized certification is for anyone working in the food industry, including non-profit organizations. UMaine Extension offers an 8-hour ServSafe® training using the latest ServSafe® Manager Book, 7th Edition Revised, and exam proctoring.
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2025 (Inclement Weather Date: May 21, 2025)
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: UMaine Extension Cumberland County, 75 Clearwater Dr., Falmouth, ME
Cost: $150 for course and exam, registration deadline May 06, 2025

The Dark Matter Mystery: Exploring a Cosmic Secret
2025-05-16 19:00 - 20:00 | Maynard Jordan Planetarium
