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September 2024 - September 2025

Highlights

 

Andrea Jones, a Sustainability major and manager of ������'s campus farm, has had a growing interest in the outdoors, bugs, plants and food since she was little.

One of her goals is to study entomology so she can work with insects as a pest management approach to sustainable agriculture.

"I would tell students considering ������ to go for it. I honestly was hesitant at first because ������ is so close to home, but it has genuinely been so inspiring. I feel like I’m actually passionate now and care about what I am doing," she said.

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🏞️$500,000 Grant Funds Study of Iron-Rich Pinelands 'Pond Gunk'

As she hiked through the woods toward the  deep in the Pine Barrens, Jesse Davis wondered what she had gotten herself into.

The ������ Biology major spent the past few minutes traipsing through the woods, dodging ticks, mosquitos and frequent poison ivy plants to Harrisville, the site of a now-abandoned bog iron furnace during the Revolutionary War.

But Davis wasn’t there to marvel at the stone ruins that produced cannonballs and railroad ties in the past. She was more interested in “the pond gunk” growing at the site in the present.

The Lacey Township native and ������ senior is part of a group working with Assistant Professor of Biology Lauren Seyler to study microbial growth at groundwater seeps in the Pine Barrens, specifically ones that produce iron.

In 2024, Seyler received a three-year, $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study three bog iron sites in the Pine Barrens where huge collections of bacteria grow that either use iron as an energy source or respire it in the same way humans do oxygen.

 

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Lake Fred Helps Students Study How Temperature Affets Reptile Immunity🐢

Craig Lind, an associate professor of Biology, and his students are studying how temperature impacts reptile health. Their fieldwork site is just a few minutes away from their classroom at Lake Fred. 

A reptile’s immune system fights off pathogens across a broad range of temperatures from just above freezing during hibernation to a blazing hot summer day while basking in the sun.

Lind wants to better understand if reptiles will be able to adapt with climate change. He is focusing on six reptiles that live in Lake Fred: the northern water snake, common snapping turtle, redbellied turtle, mud turtle, musk turtle and painted turtle.

📰 Read more: ������ News

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Alumni and Friends Joined Professor Steven Shaak to Learn About Butterflies 🦋

Alumni and friends joined Professor Steven Shaak to learn about butterflies 🦋 and how to create more habitat for them with native plants 🪴. Check out the @stocktonalumni calendar 🗓️ for more event information.

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��🾶‍🏫K-12 Teachers Get 'Hands-on' Feet-wet' Instruction on Climate Change🐟

As ������ Marine Science Professor Mark Sullivan pried open the mouth of a juvenile needle fish to reveal its pointed teeth, a couple of the teachers  on the Graveling Point Beach yelped in surprise.

“Oh, I did not expect that!”

That was just the reaction Sullivan and ������ Education Professor Kim Lebak had hoped would come from this group of kindergarten to 12th-grade teachers participating in a “hands-on, feet-wet” workshop as part of the university’s Climate Change Learning Collaborative (CCLC).

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������ Volunteers with N.J. Osprey Project to Monitor Nests🪹

When ������’s R/V Skimmer  to an osprey nesting platform on the edge of the marsh, an adult took flight from the wooden box that had lost most of its nesting material in a storm the previous night.

The anxious parent sounded alarm calls as it flew overhead, eyes locked on Melanie Schroer, an instructor of Biology, and Ben Wurst, a senior wildlife biologist for the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

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������ Terrapin Conservation Reaches Next Generation 🐢

John Rokita, assistant supervisor of the Vivarium and Collection Room Facilities, performs egg extractions on road-killed terrapins and incubates their eggs. For injured adults he uses epoxy to repair shell cracks.

“It’s like a triage system. You have to go with what you think needs your attention first and then you go from there. The phone is ringing off the hook usually from May until the end of August,” which is prime time for terrapin nesting, Rokita said.

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������ Celebrates World Ocean Day with Port Republic School 🌊

������’s Marine Field Station celebrated World Ocean Day by sharing its research projects ranging from shipwreck discoveries to marine debris removal with students from Port Republic School.

Steve Evert, director of the Marine Field Station, pointed to Nacote Creek and asked, “What beaches do you visit? Do you think this water is connected to the ocean you swim in?”  

 

 

Climate Change for K-12 Educators ♨️

The School of Education, in collaboration with its Southern Regional Institute and Educational Technology Training Center (), recently hosted a closing event to mark the culmination of its year-long Climate Change Grant. This initiative was funded by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) and aimed to enhance climate change education across K-12 schools. The event was attended by representatives from the NJDOE and educators from 16 school districts spanning the eight counties served by ������'s Regional Hub for Climate Change.

The event featured a presentation by Kim McKenna, interim executive director of the , who shared her expertise on the local impacts of climate change on coastal regions and emphasized the role of education in raising awareness.

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Vashti Mahadeo, an Environmental Science teaching specialist, took her students in Ecological Principles to Morses Mill Stream, a tributary of Lake Fred, to look for aquatic bugs that serve as biological indicators of stream health.

Lynn Maun '04, Fred Akers and Brooke Fisher '21 from the Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association joined the class to give an overview of macroinvertebrates and demonstrated how to survey the stream during a field experience. 

Aquatic macroinvertebrates (creatures without a backbone that can be seen without magnification) can tolerate varying levels of pollution. 

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International Study Emphasized at Global Engagement Fair

International Study Emphasized at Global Engagement Fair

International Study Emphasized at Global Engagement Fair 🌎

Study abroad options, like the faculty-led programming that takes students to Ghana, South Africa and Greece, were manned by students and faculty who joined previous excursions, like Criminal Justice major Isabella Campione, who vlogged her time in Italy and Ireland, and Environmental Science major Jayden Hamlet, who visited Ghana through the program just last year.

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The World's First Saber-toothed Cat Mummy was Discovered in Siberia 🏊🏽

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📷Picture ������... Digging Up Inspiration for Art 🏺

Ron Hutchison and Richard Vetter were digging footings to install recycled wind tower posts to grow hops, a creeping vine with flowers that gives beer its bitter taste, when their shovels hit clay.

“Then we did some research. We found out that New Jersey is where Lenox china was getting their clay, and in the 1900s New Jersey was the No. 1 producer of clay and exported it as far west as Ohio. We were the epicenter of clay production,” Hutchison said.

For Jack Swenson ‘24, an Environmental Science and Visual Arts double major, the discovery allowed him to connect his two majors by creating art from the environment.

📰&�Բ�����;In the News: ������

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Daylong Event Immerses High Schoolers in the Coast Day 🌊

The annual event returned on Friday, Oct. 18 at the Fannie Lou Hamer Event Room at the university’s Atlantic City campus. The annual event brought the community together to celebrate coastal culture, beach activities and environmental sustainability. 

📰&�Բ�����;In the News: ������

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Laila Abdelbary ‘25 Shares How She Turned Her Love of Sustainable Fashion into a Business. �˻️

➡️Check out her story on ������ Instagram!

Check out more stories and highlights on our socials!