Junior ecologists study life on south shore

A day at the beach doesn’t have to consist of just swimming and tanning.

In addition to taking in the sun and the water, beachgoers and others could visit the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, which first opened in the middle of the pandemic in September of 2020.

The building, located on Bay Parkway, was part of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s clean energy initiative, running on solar power and making it completely eco-friendly. Any extra solar power is sent to the New York power grid.

One half of the building focuses more on nature, with multiple exhibits featuring the wildlife and structure on Jones Beach, while the other half concentrates on energy and features the frame of a solar-powered house.

The center’s team includes a dedicated group of environmental educators, led by the director, Jeanne Haffner, who holds a doctorate of philosophy in environmental history. Despite opening in the middle of a pandemic, the building got off to a great start, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors in its first year. In the past year, however, that attendance has grown even more as schools have reopened and begun taking field trips. 

“Opening in the middle of a pandemic definitely didn’t help in terms of attendance,” said Marissa DeBonis, the Center's director of education. “But within the last year, we’ve had tons of school groups come through. And after that, more people come by. It spreads through word of mouth. People hear about us and want to visit.”

Officials said the center is committed to the fight for clean, green energy and the preservation of local nature. To accomplish this mission, the building is perfectly situated, with easy access to Jones Beach’s bay side, ocean side, dunes, grass fields, and tidal marshes, enabling the center to host a wide variety of activities.

These activities include beach cleanups, animal features, educational hikes and lectures by experts. Starting this summer, the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center launched what it hopes to be an annual summer enrichment program.

Dubbed “the junior ecologist program,” it includes a week of fun, informative experiences for children ages 12-17. The program helps prevent the “summer slide,” which is experienced by millions of children annually because they are out of school. The timing of the program, held during the week of Aug. 15, is perfect to get students’ minds working again right before school starts, officials said.

“This program is intended to introduce our students to field skills,” DeBonis said. “We want to open up their eyes to different forms of science, different ways that we can view the outdoors.”

In the program, students explore a different topic each day, including identification of local species, DNA extraction from insects in and around the center, seining, and a survey of the bird species on the beach.

DeBonis added that they never have to go too far, thanks to the center’s location.

“We have a lot of different ecosystems right here,” DeBonis said. “We have the dunes and the beach, we have the bay side right across the street. So we’re never short on places to explore.”

Mia Ramirez, an environmental education assistant at the center, helps to run the junior ecologist program, and took the students out in the field with butterfly nets for species collection. The primary goal was to collect ants and beetles for DNA extraction, although students also caught butterflies, spiders, grasshoppers and stinkbugs, all of which were brought back to the center for examination. Only the ants and the beetles were put under the microscope.

In the field, Ramirez and DeBonis used the app “Seek” to identify the species, allowing one to take a picture of a bug on their phone to determine the species.

The center’s first annual junior ecologist program was largely a success, and DeBonis said she hopes to continue this next year and create more programs like it.

“I would love to introduce more community science programs,” DeBonis said. “I think it’s really important for people to feel connected and involved and making a difference in our backyards. I hope we are inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards with these programs.”