Daniel Bowe, an interdisciplinary
team member working at the Virgin Islands National Park.
Visit the Virtual Preservation of Colonial Structures web page by clicking on the link: Virgin Islands
A total of twelve interdisciplinary students
have worked as interns in the Virgin Islands National Park in March of 2004 and March of 2006 on a project to preserve the history of the brutal system
of enslavement of Africans that supported the Danish colonial era
sugar plantation system. Thousands of Africans were captured and
brought to the island of St. John, then forced to work growing
and processing sugar cane. Mechanical Engineering Technology students
work with the Archeologist and Cultural Resource Manager Ken Wild in
the park to virtually preserve structures they built using close
range photogrammetry, geographic information systems, and other techniques. Support has been provided by the University of Maine Faculty Research Funds, the Virgin Islands National Park, the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park, and the Virgin Islands Humanities Council. The students participate in a related service learning class to learn and apply the preservation techniques. Karen Horton, P.E. of MET is the Principal Investigator with Connie Holder of Spatial Information Engineering participating. Read the related UMaine
Today magazine article at http://www.umainetoday.umaine.edu/Issues/v5i1/engineering.html.
