The Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s 32nd Annual Scarecrow Competition is back! Register as an individual, group or professional and create a scarecrowmasterpiece. First place winners will receive a cash prize. Registration and entry fee of $30 due by Wednesday, September 28th.

Vote for your favorite scarecrows between October 1 and October 26. Ballots can be f ound in all shops and eateries in Stony Brook Village and must be returned to shops no later than October 26th to be counted. Winners will be notified on Friday, October 28th by 5pm and will 

be announced during the Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s Halloween Festival on October 31st.

Registration for this event is required. You can pick up a registration form at any of the shops in Stony Brook Village, or you can download it digitally by clicking HERE!

To enter this competition, please return the completed registration form to the Ward Melville Heritage Organization – P.O. Box 572, Stony Brook, NY 11790, with the entry fee of $30.

For more information on the Scarecrow Competition, the Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO) or the Halloween Festival, please call the WMHO at 631-751-2244.

STONY BROOK, NY: June 8, 2022: The Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO) hosted its second Long Island Sound Connections Summit this week. This virtual, hands-on collaborative learning program connects students across Long Island Sound and allows them to conduct their own experiments to better understand the water systems in their environment.

Long Island Sound Connections is the first program to connect both shores with students from NewYork and Connecticut – With virtual class check-ins, “summits” where students present their findings, and an ongoing collection of data and that information’s analysis. The Long Island Sound Connections program was designed to help students learn about the Long Island Sound and to inspire them to protect their environment. The program is offered via distance learning from the WMHO’s Erwin J. Ernst Marine Conservation Center (EMCC), students have front row seats to one of the most pristine natural resources in the Northern Hemisphere. WMHO collaborated with University of Stony Brook Professor Jeffrey Levinton of the Ecology and Evolution Department to develop a system of data collection parameters for monitoring West Meadow Creek’s water quality and species counts. Professor Levinton will continue to support WMHO in developing this multipronged project that seeks to educate the public while providing data representing the creek’s health over time to the public and researchers.

Students performed their own experiments and led their own research on the topics of water salinization, acidity and quality, and human impact on the environment. Students also compared and contrasted their two environments (suburban and urban), and presented it to their partner class. The research collected from both sides of the Long Island Sound has been entered in WHMO’s software. Each season additional data will be added to it to create a map to assist researchers of all ages to understand the similarities and differences and track changes over time.

The second “Summit” of classes in this program was between Michelle Millers’ 6th Grade Science Class from Middle Country School District in Selden, New York, and Victoria Soltis and Angelica Lawrence’s 6th Grade Science from Edison Elementary School in Bridgeport, who worked in collaboration with Mill River Wetland Committee. With grants provided by the Fullwood Foundation, the Frey Family Foundation and Webster Bank, this program was offered to participating classes free of charge. All costs associated with the program were sponsored by these organizations.

For more information about the WMHO, on the Long Island Sound Connection program, other historic, environmental and scientific programs that the WMHO offers, please call 631-751-2244 or visit wmho.org.