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Allowing environmentalists and scientists to share their work with their peers and the community, Cypress Grove Nature Park hosted an inaugural research forum.
On July 29, five individuals gave presentations on their areas of focus, ranging from visitor analytics and avian population at Cypress Grove to the discovery of a new wasp species.
Research topics went beyond focusing on Cypress Grove and extended to environmental work done by Lane College students and an examination of Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park.
Cypress Grove Recreational Coordinator Darius Mullin spawned the idea of hosting a research forum to connect local scientists.
“I think science is important to understand our world and what’s around us,” Mullin said. “Cypress Grove is a part of our community, so it’s important for people to be able to see that kind of work is being done and meaningful findings are being found.”
Concluding the day’s presentations was a science communication forum that focused on wetland science.
“The hope is to make this an annual occurrence for the Cypress Grove research forum,” Mullin said. “We’d like to do it every year as an opportunity for professionals and researchers in the area who are doing work either at Cypress Grove or in Jackson or in Madison County broadly, to come together and network and talk to each other about what they’re working on.”
Visitor attendance and engagement at Cypress Grove
Park Operations Manager Christi David shared that, annually, Cypress Grove welcomes more than 17,000 visits.
The number reflects the number of actual visits rather than total visitors, meaning that if an individual visits the park three times, all three of those visits are accounted for individually.
One of two interns at Cypress Grove, Cameron Fountain, examined the visitor population to the park for her research.
Using camera footage to evaluate attendance, she studied the number and types of visitors from May 28 through July 9 and found that visitor usage and engagement with different facilities varied greatly.
Data reflected a total of 2,287 visitors during the time frame of study, with each group, averaging two people, spending 58 minutes in Cypress Grove.
Additional research found that adult males and females were the largest group of visitors and that the Aerial Trail Raptor Center saw the most visitors.
Lane College students study aquatic ecosystems
Lane College’s Natural and Physical Sciences Division Chair and Biology Professor Melanie Van Stry presented the research conducted by Lane students.
While delving into local aquatic ecosystems, students gathered water and sediment samples from various ponds across the Jackson area.
For example, results determined that the Lane College pond has a less diverse population of organisms than the pond at the Jackson Fairgrounds.
Additional findings revealed a delay in the average beginning of the winter and spring seasons, which has affected local growing seasons.
“Students in mathematics dissolved the climate model for Jackson, Tennessee using data from 1925 to 2025 that was collected at the airport and another site for average daily temperatures,” Van Stry said.
“[Using] the data mathematical model of how the climate has changed in the past hundred years, and they found that we actually have a delay in winter and a delay in spring, and this is affecting growing season for the area, so that was interesting.”
The delay constitutes a 30-day difference in the meteorological spring versus the calendar spring. This means that it gets colder later in the year than it used to, and warmer later in the year than it once did.
Beyond conducting important environmental research locally, which Van Stry says allows the students to be more interested in their projects, an improvement to graduation rates also comes as a result.
“We’re actually researching the impact of doing these projects with these students, and what we’ve found is the Lane College students who participate in the research projects have a higher graduation rate than our students who don’t participate in the projects,” she said.
“They have an increased sense of self-identity, self-efficacy, and belonging in science. These projects are shown to improve our students’ academics and success, and they are more likely to go to graduate school and pursue careers in STEM, so overall this is a really great experience for Lane students.”
Sarah Best is a reporter for The Jackson Sun. To support local journalism, subscribe to the Daily Briefing here.
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