Rutgers University Field Station held its annual Open House on Saturday, Sept. 14, and hundreds of curious folks from local towns and even other states walked the quarter-mile wooden bridge over the salt marsh to see what is happening in the former Coast Guard station off Great Bay Boulevard in Little Egg Harbor.

What they would learn is the field station is an engine of marine science. Rutgers Marine and Coastal Sciences plays a part in research projects that have a bearing on our state’s…