BOWDOIN COLLEGE • June 11, 2025
This spring, students in the course Applied GIS and Remote Sensing at Bowdoin College worked collaboratively to provide the town of Topsham with updated maps and data for key environmental, conservation, and development areas. Biology lab instructor Shana Stewart Deeds, who serves on Topsham's Conservation Commission, said the town's 2010 Natural Areas Plan “guides local efforts to conserve high-quality natural areas and open space identified as important to the town.” A few weeks after the students' presentation to the commission on their findings, Deeds met with the Conservation Commission. She heard only positive feedback from its members. “It's fantastic,” she said. “We had none of this updated information! So all of this is a gift to the Conservation Commission and to the town.”