News & Updates

For his whole life, Joel Pontius has cultivated a deep curiosity with the environment. Now, with extensive experience in teaching and writing about sustainability education, Pontius has the opportunity to shape leading-edge publications for international audiences in the fields of environmental and science education.

If you start your hike at the Learning Center and go straight on the gravel road toward the Onion Bottom wetland, you’ll pass through the Holy Cow Swamp. This isn’t an official name of course, but the story of Mary Linton yelling “Holy cow!” as she unexpectedly plunged in its depths gets retold at Merry Lea every so often.

Professors Jonathon Schramm, Ryan Sensenig, and John Mischler and undergraduate students are conducting research over several years that compares the impacts of different prairie management practices: burning and grazing.

“Just because you see different types of salamanders, doesn’t necessarily mean [those populations are] diverse.” Laura is studying which locations on Merry Lea’s property have genetically diverse populations of salamanders and why.

Tasha studied the population dynamics and habitat use of small mammals, specifically northern short-tailed shrews, mice and meadow voles. Because very little research has been done on northern short-tailed shrews, Tasha focused primarily on this species to better understand their preferred habitats.

Blanding’s turtles are Indiana state endangered semi-aquatic turtles that rely on multiple habitats for foraging, laying eggs and breeding. Liam and Tyler trapped and attached radio tags to four female and two male Blanding’s turtles to better understand their habitat usage and behavior in hopes of better protecting them.

Both Mira and Ruby worked with Merry Lea staff and volunteers to band songbirds and near passerines (a group of birds that includes woodpeckers) to contribute to the continent-wide project, Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS). This project collects and analyzes data from bird banding stations across North America to understand how habitat, weather, and climate change impact bird populations and to assess patterns in birds’ ranges and survivorship.

In 1964, the same year the Beatles played at the Indiana State Fair on their first America tour, Lee and Mary Jane Rieth acquired the first piece of land that would become the pioneering plot of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College.