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A group of East Carolina Honors College students sought to improve sustainability by creating an orchard on campus.
“Our mission is to serve college campuses by giving students the ability to invest in the environment by creating orchards,” said Grace Harper, Edible Landscape Initiative team member who specializes in elementary education.
The idea for the orchard started during the students’ first year in HNRS 2000/3000 class, where students work in teams to tackle a problem they see in the world around them. After working on their idea for a year, five members of the group – Harper, Heather Mauzy, Jonathan Hurst, Ethan Patel and Jacob Coman – decided to continue their work and make it their honors project.
“Our group initially started with the idea of tackling the climate crisis, but many of our ideas were unrealistic for what we were as a group,” Harper said. “We decided to focus on a project that would create a ripple effect in the surrounding community. Through our orchard, we hope to spread eco-centric ideas and help the community see the impact and importance of the environment.”
The Edible Landscape team met with several officials across the university, including then interim chancellor Ron Mitchellson. To help create the orchard, Edible Landscape worked with University Advancement to launch a crowdfunding campaign that raised $6,464.
“Dr. Michelson has helped us in many ways, one of which was helping us explore the ways in which ECU supports students’ ideas and projects, which is how we discovered the crowdfunding initiative,” Harper said.
Once the campaign ended, the team worked with their advisor to start ordering plants for the orchard. Plans include apple, pear, and persimmon trees. Blueberry bushes vineyards herb garden and pollinator garden. The university has granted the students permission to construct the orchard on the estate of Stratford Arms across from Clark Leclerc Stadium, which can be accessed by ECU Transit.
“College students are constantly on the move and have so many things to focus that sustainable food for so many just isn’t possible,” Harper said. “By creating this orchard, even if students are not able to eat sustainably as they would like, we will be able to teach and inspire students to start thinking in a more environmentally-centered way to achieve lasting impact.”
The Edible Landscape team began planting the orchard in late April and began making contact with other groups on campus to ensure the orchard continues to be a vital part of the campus for years to come. The team is also planning future additions to the orchard.
“As we go forward, we will try to add more decorative elements to make it a place the students and residents of Greenville can enjoy,” said Mauzy. “We are really looking forward to this project thriving as the students learn the importance of preserving the environment. We cannot thank everyone enough for all the support, and we are excited to continue moving forward.”
The team’s mentor, ECU instructor Gerald Wieser, was most impressed with the persistence and flexibility the students demonstrated throughout the process.
“This team has always been able to stand up to the possibility of failure and got some no’s, but they have always taken lessons from those experiences to turn it around and carry on the spirit of their mission,” he said.
Watching the group’s progress over the past two years has been rewarding and an example of how an Honors College curriculum designed by faculty can help students make a difference, Wiekeser said.
“It’s not just about building an orchard or pushing a group project forward,” Wiekeser said. “It’s about understanding that they can be the changemakers, rather than seeing the headlines of what other people have done. They are the doers, and I think that kind of agency will take them that much further in their careers.”
To stay up-to-date with the orchard, follow the Edible Landscaping Initiative on Instagram.
Interpretation of seafloor earthquake data
Meg Blome, associate professor of geosciences at ECU, teaches more than 50 students in an introductory oceanography course, but only half of those students take the elective lab.
Bloom wanted to give every student — not just those who take the lab — hands-on experience. So, in 2020, she applied for and was awarded a $3,000 National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Fellowship that allowed her to enhance the class through interactive activities.
First, Bloom wanted to know what her students already knew about the intensity, depth, and frequency of the earthquake. Using OOI Data Laboratories, she has combined two explorations of tectonic-related data in her class identifying the frequency and causes of seafloor earthquakes: seismic features at seamounts and plate boundary characteristics.
“I think the students enjoyed doing something other than lecturing for part of the study period,” Bloom said.
Her goals for students included observing how a set of oceanography data is presented on a single map, discovering and dispelling misunderstandings regarding the frequency and causes of earthquakes, and learning how to interpret patterns and make predictions based on the data.
She noted that most students entered class with a misconception about how often earthquakes occur – they thought they happen less often than they do. However, Bloom said students have a good understanding of how earthquakes occur and how they are categorized by the amount of damage they cause.
As the activity progressed, Bloom noticed that the students gained confidence in interpreting and making predictions about what the data represented.
I think they were surprised and motivated by their new ability to interpret data. She said this change of confidence was definitely an inspiration to me.
“I learned that by observing underwater earthquake activity we can make a good judgment about where tectonic plates meet,” said Brandon Burke, who joined Bloom’s class in the spring of 2020.
The Bloom Fellowship concluded this spring, but it intends to teach the course face-to-face in a similar manner in 2022 and will continue to incorporate online interactions.
“Part of the OOI fellowship involved integrating some of these explorations of digital data into my online oceanography lab course, and I intend to continue to modify existing lab assignments by adding more interaction with OOI data in upcoming classes,” she said.
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