NJ deciding fate of 70-year-old environmental conservation school

Nestled inside Stokes State Forest in New Jersey, about a half-dozen children are setting up insect traps, using vanilla cookies and tuna to see what six-legged creatures they snag. 

“Doing science is very easy, you can just go to the dollar store like I did,” Denise Manole, 24, said as she led a class on identifying insects on a spring morning. “It's just going out and doing it and then having fun and loving what you're doing. That’s all science is about.”

Manole is a New Jersey Watershed Ambassador with AmeriCorps and is leading one of the handful of workshops at the New Jersey School of Conservation. 

The 240-acre school is a rural oasis in the densest state in the U.S. The school is located in Sussex County, the state’s northwestern county, close to the state’s border with Pennsylvania and New York. The single-story red cabins are spread across Stokes State Forest, a peaceful enclave 50 miles west of denser Essex County.