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SCCC Celebrates Earth Week with the WRWMG

To commemorate Earth Week, the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority-Wallkill River Watershed Management Group partnered with Sussex County Community College (SCCC) to plan an environmentally-themed event on April 19 for the students of SCCC and Halsted Street Middle School.

Throughout the event, Halsted students rotated through a series of stations led by the Wallkill River Watershed Management Group, SCCC environmental science students, and Sussex County Clean Communities. By participating in each station, students learned about macroinvertebrate (aquatic insect) sampling to determine water quality, the importance of planting tree buffers along waterways for stream health, how to prevent non-point source pollution, the ecological benefits of recycling, and how to become a watershed steward at the local level. During the afternoon, Halsted Middle School students also participated in a plant identification trail walk led by SCCC’s Adventure Club as well as a campus litter clean-up organized by SCCC’s Biology Club.

SCCC’s environmental science students took an active role in educating the middle school students about the importance of protecting water quality in their home community. This event will allow SCCC students to fulfill their service learning requirements by teaching the skills they have acquired in the classroom and in the field to younger students from Halsted Middle School. This event is unique in that it will connect college-aged students with middle school students from Newton, resulting in a sharing of experiences across different age groups.

The Wallkill River Watershed Management Group (WRWMG) was excited to plan this event to strengthen its partnership with SCCC and the Town of Newton. The April 19th event is the first step in linking the SCCC student body to the water quality improvement mission of the WRWMG. Located at the headwaters of the Paulins Kill River, SCCC provides the perfect platform to implement green infrastructure projects on campus to improve the long-term water quality of the Paulins Kill Watershed. The WRWMG looks forward to working alongside SCCC students to implement stormwater best management practices on campus in the coming months.