Morning at the marsh: Ridgefield Park students create islands in Meadowlands

LYNDHURST — They are no more than tiny flecks in a vast ecosystem, but the five floating islands cast this week into a tidal lagoon at the Meadowlands Environment Center will nurture an abundance of life.

Students from Ridgefield Park visited the center on Thursday morning to finish the project, which they have worked on all month as part of a summer enrichment program.

They spent an hour on the waterfront — first planting two types of native species in their artificial islands before carefully dropping them into the shallow marsh.

The last step was to anchor them with sturdy cords to the jetty.

Ronaldo Ureña, 15, who was among the students to participate in the activity, said the experience taught him to appreciate the wetlands habitat.

“We’re making a change that not a lot of people are willing to do,” said Ronaldo, who will be a high school freshman in September.

“Even though it’s a small one,” he added, “we’re still helping the environment.”

The students arrived by school bus at the center at Richard W. DeKorte Park at 9:30 a.m. They were briefed on the project by Karin LaGreca, an educator at the center, and followed her across the jetty to the launch point about 500 feet from the shore.

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The islands were made of 10-foot lengths of drainage pipes, filled with empty water bottles and shaped in a ring. Sheets of mesh were fastened to the plastic tubes with zip ties to form two surfaces.

Using utility knives, the students made slits in the top of the islands and wedged in the root balls of the plants.

The islands serve multiple benefits. Frogs, turtles and birds like the marsh wren will seek refuge amid the growth of cordgrass and flowering goldenrods. Small fish are inclined to hide below the surface, where a biofilm will thrive amid the plant roots to attract a host of microscopic organisms.

Another advantage, said the educators at the center, is how such a project can control the effects of climate change.

Balmy temperatures may lead to harmful algal blooms, but the educators in charge of the program say the aquatic plants in the islands reduce algae by sucking up nutrients that cause it.

“It’s not a silver bullet,” said Angela Cristini, the director of the center and a professor of biology at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah. “But to learn how to do this is really a way to start fighting global warming.”

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The field trip to the center, a facility of the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority operated by the college, was the culmination of the Ridgefield Park summer enrichment program.

Dennis Murri, a co-coordinator of the program, said it is an “outstanding supplemental activity” for the students.

“On top of that,” he said, “it supports the academics that they need to help them be more successful in the year to follow.”

Hundreds of the K-12 district’s students were enrolled in the extended school year, which began on June 28. It was offered at no cost to their parents, and it was paid for through a COVID-19 relief grant. In May, the Board of Education approved a $55,000 contract with the center to provide STEM-based instruction during the program.

Murri said the floating islands project was specifically for 51 students who just finished sixth, seventh and eighth grades. In the coming months, he said, they will return to the marsh to see how their work fared.

Michele Daly, the school district program coordinator for the center, said the facility’s educators also brought lessons this summer to students with special needs in Little Ferry. Next month, she said, they will be in Ringwood.

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Ridgefield Park NJ students cast islands into Meadowlands marsh