The Mount Saint Mary College community celebrated Earth Day on Friday, April 22 with a pair of planet-friendly activities.
First, honors students aided the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)’s eel-monitoring project in Newburgh’s Quassaick Creek. The group, consisting of Natural Sciences majors, was led by Suparna Bhalla, associate professor of Biology; and Lynn Maelia, professor of Chemistry.
The project entailed students heading to the creek and counting eels that have been caught in nets. The tiny, nearly transparent American eels are born in the ocean and migrate upstream to live, eventually returning to the ocean to spawn. According to the DEC, the species is in decline.
Later in the day, a trio of Mount Resident Assistants planted flowers, vegetables, and more in the garden at Bishop Dunn Memorial School on the Mount Campus. Grace O’Sullivan and Richard Vilcean, both of Nanuet, N.Y., and Maggie Seeley of Borough, Pa. teamed up with Mrs. Stacey Swinkunas’s fourth-grade class for the Earth Day activity.