Frog Watch Training

Helen Fenske Visitor Center 32 Pleasant Plains Rd, New Vernon, NJ, United States

Do you know your spring peepers from your wood frogs? What does a leopard frog sound like and can they be found in your neighborhood? Join GSWA and Tedor Whitman of Cora Hartshorn Arboretum for this hands-on training session to become an official FrogWatch volunteer. FrogWatch is a citizen science program that uses volunteer’s observations to create a database of frog and toad sightings, helping to establish long-term and large-scale data on amphibian populations. During the training, you’ll learn how to recognize different species of frogs and toads from their appearance and calls, and how to record your observations into the database. We will work with you to select places around the region to monitor and you will be frog counting in no time! Registration required. Register online at GreatSwamp.org or call (973) 538-3500 x 22.    

Build Your Own Rain Barrel Workshop

Great Swamp Watershed Association HQ 568 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ, United States

Why should you get a rain barrel? Use a barrel to capture and store the rain running through your home’s downspout and you’ll routinely have 55 gallons of free water to use around your property. Your barrel will also help slow the flow of stormwater running through your neighborhood and entering local streams. This helps to reduce flooding and water pollution. Sounds like a good idea, right? GSWA and Green Mojo Eco Consulting will help you build your own water-saving rain barrel. Using a recycled, food-grade barrel and a spigot adapter kit, we will walk you through the simple construction process. Each registered participant will leave with the workshop with their very own handcrafted rain barrel that is ready to be hooked up to a household downspout.    

Spring Begins Hike

Helen Fenske Visitor Center 32 Pleasant Plains Rd, New Vernon, NJ, United States

There’s no better way to celebrate the first day of spring than to get outside and explore. Join GSWA’s Dan Ross as he guides you in identifying the first signs of spring – skunk cabbages peaking through the snow, new buds forming on trees, and spring migrants returning from their winter destinations. Although it may feel as though winter will be with us forever, these signs of spring will be sure to brighten your day.        

Natural History Hike

Jockey Hollow Visitor Center 600 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ

Enjoy a spring hike with Great Swamp Watershed Association’s (GSWA) Dan Ross & Jockey Hollow’s Park Ranger Eric Olsen. The duo will guide you through all of the important landscape features that soldiers in George Washington’s Continental Army would have experienced during the brutal winter of 1779-80. You will learn both the natural and national history of this park. Interested adults and families with children are encouraged attend.      

Stream Assessment Training

Great Swamp Watershed Association HQ 568 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ, United States

If you are interested in becoming a stream monitoring volunteer or just learning more about stream health, this is the training for you! An indoor classroom session helps you learn how to conduct visual stream assessments, and recognize environmental factors that may impact stream health. An outdoor session helps you practice your new-found skills at a local stream site. Afterwards, you will be a fully trained stream assessment volunteer and ready to conduct a new assessment this fall! This training will be conducted in conjunction with the AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassador Program.      

Bringing Back the Bees

Great Swamp Watershed Association HQ 568 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ, United States

Join us and Environmental Resource Management Agent Amy Rowe for a special breakfast briefing presentation on how to ensure that honeybees, native bees, and other pollinators thrive in your local environment. Registration required.        

Spring Peeper Party

Great Swamp Watershed Association's CMA 1 Tiger Lily Ln, Morristown, NJ, United States

Discover a new kind of night life! The forests and wetlands of New Jersey’s Great Swamp are bound to be hopping during this spring hike at the Great Swamp Watershed Association’s Conservation Management Area (CMA).  After all, this is the time of year when spring peepers, wood frogs, chorus frogs, and other chatty amphibians make their way to woodland pools to mate and reproduce.  As twilight explodes into song, learn how critically important these shallow puddles (known as vernal pools) and their adorable denizens are for the health of our water resources and the local environment.      

Cinco de Mayo Margarita Tasting

Great Swamp Watershed Association HQ 568 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ, United States

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Great Swamp Watershed Association! Sip on a variety of different margaritas and nosh on guacamole and salsa. GSWA non-members and members bringing non-member friends are invited to come to this event free of charge! An anonymous donor will donate $25 for each non-member that walks through our door that night, and match any contributions dollar for dollar.        

New Jersey’s Aging Water Infrastructure

Great Swamp Watershed Association HQ 568 Tempe Wick Rd, Morristown, NJ, United States

There is a long-standing problem of water infrastructure management in New Jersey.  Water supply, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure systems have not received adequate investment for decades in most parts of the state.  Many of our existing pipelines were put in place during two growth spurts – the city-building era of 1890-1930 and the suburban growth boom of 1950-1970. These pipes are aging to the point of frequent failure.  Treatment plants were built or upgraded more recently, in response to the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act of the 1970s, but are also aging and will need significant investment.  Dr. Van Abs will discuss the coming collision between the public interest in sound water infrastructure and the public’s interest in low costs.      

Volunteer Stream Restoration

Loantaka Brook Reservation's Kitchell Pond 75 Kitchell Rd, Morristown, New Jersey

GSWA is looking for volunteers ages 15 and up to help remove invasive plants and re-plant native trees and shrubs around Loantaka Brook Reservation’s Kitchell Pond. Our volunteer team will improve a strip of vegetation (also known as a vegetated buffer) around the pond that reduces the amount of pollution-laden stormwater flowing into it and helps stem the tide of erosion in the area. Since Loantaka Brook runs into and out of Kitchell Pond, the buffer also improves the health of water running downstream into the Great Swamp and the Passaic River. All tools and supplies will be provided. To register, please contact Sandra LaVigne at [email protected] or 973-538-3500.