Place Rocky Hill’s Salt Marsh, Our Living Lab for Exploration & Discovery

Rocky Hill’s salt marsh is one of the jewels of our campus, and it is always a good day when we pull out the big bin of rubber boots to head outside!

7th graders at RHCD spend the first six weeks of science class studying the salt marsh, conducting experiments on the invasive Phragmites australis, and working with Save the Bay on conservation efforts.

As a living laboratory for exploration and discovery, the marsh provides our students an opportunity to learn about a vital local ecosystem and the balance that has slowly evolved over the millennia between species, allowing them to thrive in this environment. It also creates for us a window through which we can monitor any changes that occur as a result of a warming climate. This winter, we had an unusual flood tide that surpassed anything had seen in my many years at RHCD, one that left debris from the marsh in a distinct line following the extent of the hightide on all of our lower sports fields. As the students walked the boundary line of this debris, we felt like we were peering through this window and into the future, and it certainly made a far greater impression than any conversation we might have had in the classroom.

63 fish species in the Bay use salt marshes as nurseries1

Egrets and great blue herons feed in the salt marshes during the Summer1