On Wednesday, November 11, 2015, Stockton University held its Sixties Concert in the Campus Center Theatre. Starting at 6:00 PM and ending at 9:30 PM, the event featured the performances of first Barry Bender and Friends, featuring 1960s classics such as “The Times They Are a Changin’” by Bob Dylan, “Dear Prudence” by the Beatles, “The Tin Man” by Barry Bender, and “Friends of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead. Student performers then performed several songs, including “Yesterday” by the Beatles, performed by Marianna Alshay.  After the student performances, the Stockton Faculty Band played many highly-anticipated songs. One such song was “Land of 1000 Dances” by Chris Kenner. This particular song featured student dancers. Other songs performed by the faculty band included “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett and “Mustang Sally” by Mack Rice. There were also special performances of The Temptations’ “My Girl” by Stockton’s American Sign Language Club and Mary Wells’ “My Guy” courtesy of Carol Pacentrilli.

Located around the periphery of the CC Theatre were many poster displays made by students in John O’Hara’s The Sixties class, highlighting many events and issues of the decade, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first lunar landing, and the start of the Vietnam War. There were also several posters portraying the lifestyles of hippies and beatniks and their role in the anti-Vietnam movement. I feel the poster that struck me the hardest was one concerning the Kennedy assassination and its impact on the American people. The poster showed Americans acting in response, showing their patriotism as well as their grief for their President. One statistic on the poster was that 175 million people tuned in to watch the heartbreaking event. Also pasted onto the poster was the classic photo showing John Jr. saluting his father while at St. Mathew’s Cathedral in Washington D.C. This image helped to portray the sadness facing the country in the days following Friday, November 22, 1963.

Stockton’s Sixties Concert was not only a success, but it was also informative and inspiring. It taught me a lot more about the societal issues facing the United States during the decade of the 1960s and how it affected the country at large. In particular, it taught me how the assassination of President Kennedy shook the nation.

On Thursday, September 10, 2015, I attended Frozen Earth, a climate change panel discussion at Stockton University’s Noyes Museum of Art. The moderator of the discussion was Diane Burko, an artist who has addressed the issue of climate change, particularly the retreat of glaciers. The panelists included Michael Lemonick, Amy Lipton, Dr. Jeff Niemitz, Andy Revkin, and Aaron T. O’Conner. Lemonick is a writer for Climate Central, who covered environmental and science issues for TIME prior to his current position at Climate Central. Lipton is a gallerist and co-founder of Eco Art Space, a leading organization of artists, writers, scientists and businesses developing strategies to address environmental issues. Nimitz is a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dickinson College. Revkin is a journalist and professor who has covered science and environmental issues for over 30 years and is currently the Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University. O’Conner is the director of The Arctic Circle, an Arctic residency research and public engagement program.

The program began with Lemonick explaining how he misrepresented scientific evidence concerning the ozone depletion as being related to global warming when he was working for TIME. The October 19, 1987, issue of TIME had a cover with both topics being addressed underneath the phrase “The Heat Is On.” Lemonick used this example to show how the relationship between scientists and science writers who report their findings has developed since the 1980s, and how the evidence for climate change has continued to mount. Amy Lipton continued to elaborate on similar efforts that she leads in Eco Art Space, such as her project “Down to Earth” at the Schuykill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia. Lipton educated visitors about sustainable practices and green principles and their relationship to aspects of society such as art and agriculture.  More recently, Lipton has organized Human/Nature: Art and the Environment, a program she has led with The Nature Conservancy to promote and establish discussions between climate scientists and artists.

Dr. Jeff Niemitz was the next participant to speak. He discussed the correlation between the increasing CO₂ levels and increasing global average temperature, and the evidence that climate change deniers often ignore, such as how loss of land ice, not sea ice, contributes to sea level increase. One of Dr. Niemitz’s specialties is the geological and climatological history of Earth, and he discussed how greenhouse gas emissions have been behaving during the last 1 million years and how their increase today is unprecedented in this time frame. He continued the panel discussion by showing predictions for further carbon emissions for up to the year 2100, as well as the problems resulting from the emission increase, such as further increase in average global temperature.

Next to speak was Andy Revkin, who discussed his work on documenting changes in the Arctic. Aaron T. O’Conner also elaborated, explaining how severe changes in Arctic ice levels have been and what the effect has been on the surrounding ecosystems. The panelists ended the discussion by stressing how important hope is in ameliorating environmental problems associated with climate change, and that the fact that these issues are becoming recognized should give us hope. They also pointed out that may be too late to completely mitigate climate change, but that future work should be focused on attempting to live with it and preventing it from getting worse.

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On August 31^st 2015, I attended the Lake Fred Nature Tour at 1:00 PM. It was conducted by Stockton staff member Susan Allen and started at the gazebo on the northern side of the campus. We started along the white path, on Lake Fred’s northern banks, where Allen discussed the different types of flora present along the lake’s banks. Several types of plants included many types of grasses, such as Phragmites. Of the species, some were indigenous, some were invasive. The history of Lake Fred was also discussed, and Allen discussed how the lake, which is man-made, was dug in the 19^th century for a local iron smelting plant.

On the western side of Lake Fred, Allen discussed the different types of trees growing on campus, including red cedar, black cherry and numerous species of oaks and pines. The western banks of the lake are home to numerous amphibian species, including the Northern Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) and the New Jersey chorus frog (Pseudacris triseriata kalmi), who use the banks of the lake as a breeding and spawning ground. Further along the banks, Ms. Allen discussed the bird sightings and and biodiversity around the Oasis, which has been occasionally frequented by ospreys and warblers. Great egrets were also known to reside around the western banks of the lake.

On the southern end of Lake Fred, Mrs. Allen explained the different species of algae and turtles that live in and around Lake Fred. Further towards the southeast portion of the lake, Mrs. Allen discussed and vividly explained the birdhouses constructed by several Environmental Science classes on the southeast banks. This birdhouses, she explained provide a refuge for many different species. The tour ended on the dark path with detailed discussions of the different types of reeds found in the southern end of Lake Fred, which is substantially marshier than than the northern end. This tour was of special interest to me, as I have more or less grown up on the Stockton campus and have been interested in the biodiversity of the campus all my life. The tour presented me the opportunity to learn more and to set my sights on future research opportunities I can conduct around campus.