A Fusion of Art and Science | Martha's Vineyard Times

On the southwest end of the Elizabeth Islands chain, Penikese Island is a 75-acre piece of land that remains almost untouched by time, offering a rare glimpse into what coastal Massachusetts looked like centuries ago. This year, the Island celebrates 150 years of botanical surveys, a scientific legacy that has quietly shaped some of the nation’s leading research institutions.

“It’s a really cool long-term data set,” Kimberly Ulmer, executive director of the nonprofit Penikese Island School, told The Times. “I’m not a botanist, but as a biologist, long-term data sets are really cool and interesting and valuable. The longer they go on, the better they become, and 150 years is a pretty good run.”

To celebrate this remarkable legacy, the school is hosting an event at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole on July 16. The event will highlight the data set collected on Penikese as well as the island’s historic ties to the lab, dating back to Penikese’s early days as a school for natural history in the 1870s. Read rest of story here.