Salamander Project

by Allison Conner

Carver Middle Highschool and SPARCnet are partnering to work on salamander research.

“We are participating in a national research project called SPARCnet that studies salamanders in the Eastern United States. Ms. Whalen had conducted research with SPARCnet in college and brought the project to Carver Middle High School,” states Sean Lyman.

Julia Whalen, Michelle Littleton, and Sean Lyman are the science teachers at CMHS who are involved with the salamander research project.

It was started by SPARCnet, which stands for the Salamander Population and Adaptation Research Collaboration Network.

Whalen started researching salamanders when she went to college at Bridgewater State University. She decided it would be a great topic to introduce to the new Environmental and Agricultural Sciences Pathway at CMHS. This will give high school students the opportunity to participate in the hands-on experiences that college scientists are doing.

Whalen decided that CMHS would research the Eastern Red Backed Salamander.

Student volunteers and the teachers involved set up plots at the school on Saturday, Oct 9. The salamanders will hide under the wooden plots, and will be collected by Lyman, Whalen, Littleton, along with the students from the Ecology and Environmental classes.

“We will be measuring their length, finding out their sex, and looking to see if they have any eggs,” Whalen explained.

SPARCnet started doing this research in 2013. Whalen joined their research at Bridgewater State University in 2018, and worked on it for a year and a half.

“This is a long term research project that hopefully will continue for decades into the future,” Lyman said.

“We hope to share our data with SPARCnet and look at larger patterns in salamander populations,” Littleton said.

Students will be able to get involved with the salamander project in the future. When the opportunity arises students will be able to volunteer and help with the research. Students can also take the new Environmental and Agricultural Sciences Pathway, as well as taking the Principles of Ecology class.