A month after the University of Maryland’s Commencement exercises, two more terrapins took their first steps into the real world this week.
Tess and Tudo, 9-month-old hatchlings raised in the College of Education, crawled down the wet sand of Poplar Island into the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay on Tuesday, cheered on by a crowd of eager Terps.
“The best part for me is how invested and excited the students and the faculty get—it’s the joy of connecting with and raising these turtles,” said Clinical Associate Professor Amy Green, director of UMD’s Center for Science and Technology in Education, who has now raised four cohorts of diamondback terrapins with Clinical Associate Professor Angela Stoltz.
The outing to Poplar Island included Provost and Senior Vice President of UMD, Dr. Jennifer King Rice, as well as students from Green’s Spring 2026 UH course: HNUH258O: Supporting our Watershed: Indigenous Perspectives on Biodiversity and Conservation in the Chesapeake Region.
Read more about the exciting terrapin release, click here.
*Photo Above: Crouching at the water’s edge on Poplar Island, Provost and Senior Vice President Jennifer King Rice (center) and music education major Lorelai Loyd ’28 release two terrapin hatchlings raised at UMD, Tess and Tudo, into the Chesapeake Bay. Loyd took the Honors College course “Inclusive Conservation: Indigenous Philosophies and Western Science for Biodiversity and Resilience in the Chesapeake and Beyond” in Spring 2026, one of three across UMD that incorporated the terrapins into the curriculum this past school year. (Photos by John T. Consoli)