Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Honors Outgoing Director of Education, Kim Botelho, and Welcomes New Education Coordinator, Camden Palm

Kelly Bernatzky • April 20, 2021

With profound gratitude and appreciation, the Maria Mitchell Association announces the departure of Kim Botelho, Director of Education.


The MMA has been extremely fortunate to have Botelho’s leadership, passion for education, and dedication to scientific learning. During her seven year tenure, and under her leadership as Director of Education, the Nantucket Science Festival has grown to be the largest off season event on the island with many incredible partner organizations; the Maria Mitchell Giving Garden has helped provide fresh produce to the Nantucket Food Pantry; the Summer Discovery programs have received a number of awards and now reach over 600 children each summer; and the MMA’s 5th Grade Trees in the Community Program has given out over 1,200 native trees with the help of our community partner, Annie Mendelsohn. Since the fall, Botelho has been teaching monthly STEM lessons with Nantucket Elementary School’s Kindergarten classrooms. Over the years, Botelho has also led and served as a mentor to nearly 100 interns through our environmental education internship program. When reflecting on this experience, she shares that, “Having the opportunity to pass on my knowledge, experience, and passion for the natural world to the next generation of environmental educators and science teachers fills my soul with joy and gratitude.”


Beyond our island, Botelho has served on the boards of the Massachusetts Environmental Education Society, the New England Environmental Education Alliance, as the partner representative for the National Informal STEM Education Network, and as a state affiliate representative for the North American Association of Environmental Education. In these roles, she was able to provide teacher professional development opportunities for hundreds of teachers across the Commonwealth and across the country. 

The MMA is grateful to Botelho and her dedication to sharing our mission. Botelho shares, “It has been one of the great honors of my life to represent Maria Mitchell, a truly, amazing woman whose convictions for science, learning by doing, and equal rights and opportunities for all resonate within myself. The educational initiatives and community partnerships I have been a part of over the years have been some of the most rewarding of my career. I hope Maria Mitchell would be proud of the work I have endeavored to do in her name. Before I leave, I want to send out a huge THANK YOU to all of the camp families, community partners, students, teachers, and coworkers who have helped make my time here so meaningful. I hope our paths continue to cross in the future.”

Next month, the MMA will officially welcome Camden Palm as its new Education Coordinator. Palm was born and raised in Southern California, and found a love for environmental education on an 8th grade field trip to Yosemite National Park. After spending many summers in New Hampshire and Connecticut, she is excited to be back working and exploring the New England ecosystems.

 

Her passion for environmental education was cultivated while attending the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where she studied Environmental Studies and Statistics. During her time at UCSB, she volunteered with an environmental education organization teaching local students environmental stewardship and sustainability curriculum. After graduating, she worked as an Instructor and Assistant Director for the Catalina Environmental Leadership Program on Catalina Island, located off the coast of Los Angeles. Similar to the programs at the Maria Mitchell Association, this program promotes a passion for science and sustainability through land and sea exploration. Taking her experience from one island ecosystem to the next, she is excited to continue connecting students, participants, and campers to the natural world.


Palm will be leading the MMA’s summer programming, including the popular Discovery Camps, overseeing the 2021 Education Internship Program, mentoring this year’s Education Interns, and continuing the MMA’s school year STEM programming in partnership with Nantucket schools.

The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

For Immediate Release

April 19 2021

Contact: Kelly Bernatzky, MMA Development Associate

kbernatzky@mariamitchell.org

Recent Posts

Mallow!

By Jascin Leonardo Finger • August 31, 2026
I’m sure you’ve seen it as you trek about the island – near the beaches and ponds. This image is of the swamp or marsh mallow that we have on Vestal Street in our garden out front of the Observatory. It can grow in drier places – though it’s not as lush as at Capaum Pond or out in Quaise. It’s in the Hibiscus family – and is fairly tropical looking and always a delight to see.  “When in bloom, one of the most showy plants of the Island, for a mass of the magnificent, large flowers on the edge of a blue pond causes one’s heart to thrill at the wealth of deep pink colour . . .” from Nantucket Wild Flowers, Alice O. Albertson (cousin of Maria Mitchell), 1921. JNLF

A Piece of a Clay Pipe

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 24, 2026
I have always wanted to find a piece of a clay pipe. I know – weird – but if you have ever read any of my blogs here for the MMA then you know I have a thing for pottery shards. I sort of figured I would not find a piece of a clay pipe – not even a piece of a stem. But the other day, walking in a place where I have found quite a few shards, I found a piece of clay pipe! Now, I’m not talking about water pipes – I am talking about tobacco pipes. And I know very little about clay pipes. Yes, I am a curator of a historic house museum, but this family did not smoke. They were Quaker and among the many things they abstained from, tobacco was one of them. Therefore, I am not up on clay pipes so I am doing a bit more research.  For one, age can be determined by the width of the hole inside the pipe. So based on this one, I would say it’s fairly late. Since they were so fragile, and those holes pretty small, if it got filled with tobacco, the person just broke off the stem creating a shorter pipe and one that was not clogged with tobacco. Apparently, stems could be recycled – in fact, 15,000 broken stem pieces were uncovered at a historic walkway at Colonial Williamsburg – they were used as fill! And pipes were made into the early twentieth century – falling out of favor around World War One. It makes sense – they were cheap, easy to make, and affordable. Typically, one could last a few years – unless you dropped it of course. An,d pipes were used by men, women, and (eh, em) yes, children. I can see that Nantucket may not have had a lot of tobacco smoking residents – not just that some were Quaker – but because of the Quaker influence. I t does not mean people here do not smoke – I just think there may have been fewer smokers on the island in the nineteenth century and earlier. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 17, 2026
August 19 {1857}. There are four great men whose haunts I mean to seek, and on whose footsteps I mean to stand: Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, and Johnson. To-day I told the driver to take me to St. Martin’s, where the guide-book says that Newton lived. He put me down at the Newton Hotel, but I looked in vain to its top to see anything like an observatory. I went into a wine-shop near, and asked a girl, who was pouring out a dram, in which house Newton lived. She pointed, not to the hotel, but to the house next to a church, and said, “that’s it – don’t you see a place on the top? That’s where he used to study nights.” It is a little, oblong-shaped observatory, built apparently of wood, and blackened by age . . . .” Blackened no doubt by the wood ash and soot found in the air throughout over-crowded nineteenth century London. We always think about London being very foggy in the nineteenth century but frankly a lot of it was wood and coal ash as the nineteenth century grew older, particularly as factories developed and belched all of that into the air – think Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. But Maria Mitchell, while starting in Europe as a young woman’s chaperone, also knew that this tour of Europe was a great learning experience – the equivalent of a college education she could not have. Doors were thrown open to her around Europe – in particular at all of the observatories that dotted the continent. She was not just well-known – she was famous. JNLF
Show More