One of New Jersey’s Most Unique Environmental Ecosystems Offers Hands-On Learning for Pennington Students

Nearly 60 juniors and seniors in Dr. Margo Andrews’s Environmental Science and Ecology classes spent a beautiful fall day exploring the New Jersey Pine Barrens earlier this month. The day-long environmental field trip was designed as an integral part of both classes’ course curricula, providing real-world experience to complement class study. 

Led by naturalists and guides from Pinelands Adventures, students and chaperones canoed the reservoir and walked the trails of the newly protected Rancocas Cranberry Preserve. In preparation for this trip, students learned about the unique and intertwining ecological and cultural histories of the Barrens, and ecology students created a field guide detailing several plant and animal species they might encounter on the excursion. 

As the preserve sits on a former cranberry farm, the group was able to observe the rewilding of prior bogs and witness firsthand numerous species they had learned about in class, including pitch pine trees, wild blueberries and cranberries, and the carnivorous roundleaf sundew plant. Exploring the preserve on foot allowed students an intimate look at the ecological restoration underway in the area.

The group returned to campus, both exhausted and invigorated by the day’s discoveries, with plans to continue deepening their studies of this region. Schoolwork aside, the most valuable takeaway from the day, according to Dr. Andrews, was, “how much fun it was to spend time with friends in nature, whether they were rocking canoes that had run aground on underwater stumps, snacking on wild berries, or spotting birds through binoculars.”