Most people pack up their beach bags and umbrellas and head for the beach during the summertime.  But for middle school students at St. Mary School, Bordentown, fall was the time to board the bus for Island Beach State Park, not to sunbathe, but to take part in the Clean Ocean Action Beach sweep.  On Oct. 6 students donned their environmental hats and joined with schools from all over New Jersey to learn about the ocean, its value for humanity and ways in which people can care for it.

Students were divided into groups and then shuffled off to different stations where they learned about the effects of pollution, including the damage plastic bags and water bottles can do to the environment.  Participants held sea stars (star fish) and sea urchins and examined the horseshoe crab to learn about its value to the human community. 

Participants learned about non-point source pollution, which is pollution that comes from a variety of sources, and how it affects lakes, rivers and streams.  Besides taking part in these learning stations, students walked through the bird sanctuary and tested water to check on its quality.  Some of the groups donned waders and went seining.  A seine is a large, long fishing net that hangs in the water, held down with weights along the bottom edge and with floats attached along the top.  “I only caught a snail in my net-dragging, but I liked being in the water,” exclaimed one young participant.

Students  also went on scavenger hunts to see how much trash they could find –left over from the summer. As an extra perk, hundreds of monarch butterflies dotted the skies as they were migrating south.

“What a way, a valuable one at that, to officially close the summer season at the shore,” said St. Mary principal Dr. Frank X. McAneny.  “It was a trash-tastic beach clean-up.”