Stokes Orientation

Let Year 14 begin!

The first week of NJWAP Orientation occurred at the New Jersey School of Conservation (SOC) at Stokes State Forest in Sandyston, NJ (Sussex County) from September 16-19, 2013. We all arrived bright and early to kick off our term of service. 

The first day included introductions, safety, the AmeriCorps contract & history, and team building activities. Our Program Manager-- Kathy Giordano from NJDEP Water Monitoring & Standards- Bureau of Environmental Analysis, Restoration, & Standards (WMS-BEARS)-- had the 20 ambassadors throw around a plastic ball and proclaim what alliteration nickname we were; I am "Terrific Tilly." :) All in all, a fun and tiring first day of training!

After a handful of the ambassadors traveled to Sunrise Mountain, we all met for breakfast before recapping the previous day's events. Tuesday was the first day of biological stream monitoring training. Christina Medved from the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, PA conducted a "Getting to Know Your Streams" presentation which included:

• Stream biodiversity
• Cleam Stream Ethics
• Field experience

We began working on benthic macroinvertebrate identification after lunch with Christina and two NJDEP employees, Ariane Guidicelli and Katherine Axt.

Benthic macroinvertebrates are organisms that are visible to the naked eye ("macro") without backbones ("invertebrate") that live on or near the bottom ("benthic" from the term "benthos" meaning "depths of the sea") of streams, rivers, and lakes around sediment and rocks.

We worked with a multitude of macros from each taxa including Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Plecoptera (stoneflies), and Trichoptera (Caddisfly) orders (collectively known as "EPT") along with scuds, dragonflies, damselflies, midges, etc. 

My favorite macro, the case-building caddisfly, uses its surroundings to build its case-- some have utilized their building powers to make jewelry! (laughingsquid.com)

Macroinvertebrate Taxa Groups

• Group One: Pollution-intolerant
• Group Two: Pollution-sensitive
• Group Three: Pollution-tolerant

An abbreviated chart containing the three taxa of benthic macroinvertebrates (discovercarolina.com)

After some free time to pack and dinner, we began working on the Enviroscape! Our "bread and butter" for presentations, the Enviroscape is a great tool to show the effects of point and non-point source pollution on the watershed level. There are other models that focus on other aspects of the environment including wetlands and coastal areas.

A watershed is a given area of land that drains to one point which may be a river, lake, stream, estuary, or ocean (drainage basin). In the words of John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, "that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community."

My Enviroscape Setup

We ended the night around a fire with AmeriCorps NJWAP alum that came out to give us some advice and chat about our potential struggles and successes. A great experience I will not ever forget!

Wednesday began with a nature walk around Stokes with Ariane before continuing with Christina's presentation; day two's topics, "Streams Within the Watershed Context," included:

• Riparian buffer & stream ecosystems
• Didymo Decontamination
• Field Experience

Didymo, (Didymosphenia geminata) also known as "rock snot" (nj.gov/dep/wms/bfbm)

We continued practicing our macroinvertebrate identification before receiving information on our watershed tour presentation, tips for creating an effective presentation, and time to practice the Enviroscape model. After a long, thorough day, I was exhausted! One day left at Stokes...

Thursday was an abbreviated day which included general environmental education principles, AmeriCorps accountability, and tips on how to work copacetic with your host agency. It was great to hear about things we could do the following week to get on the ground running especially from a Yr 1 ambassador, Nathanial Sajdak of the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority (SCMUA), the host agency supervisor for WMA 2. After we had all our equipment distributed, we headed home looking forward to our first days at our host agencies and Parvin Orientation the following week. Here we come!

 Lake Walapanne at Stokes State Forest (photo credit: Thalya Reyes)