Planting With Purpose: Honors Students Foster Biodiversity on Campus
Equipped with shovels and spades, and tape measures and topsoil, first-year Dorman Scholars gathered behind Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC) on a sunny weekend morning in early October to plant a variety of native species: New Jersey tea, blazing star, New England aster, lady fern, butterfly milkweed and coneflower. They were beautifying the ADHC grounds to be sure, but more importantly, they were continuing a project started by last year’s first-years to increase biodiversity on the NJIT campus. The project is part of the Honors First-Year Seminar.
“Biodiversity has many different layers to it, but in general it’s how many different species and organisms [there are] in an area … basically the variety of life forms,” explained Caroline DeVan, a lecturer in biological sciences at NJIT and an adviser on the project.
The plants were selected in part based on the research findings from the 2018-2019 Honors First-Year Seminar that saw a need to support a larger number of organisms (especially pollinators) and solve irrigation issues. They include bloomers and berry-producers that can help prevent rainwater runoff and provide “ecosystem services.”
“The idea of ‘ecosystem service’ is one reason that biodiversity is very valuable. It’s basically all these things that nature does for us for free that we just take for granted, like creating oxygen, cleaning water, reducing floodwater,” said DeVan.
Deanna Mostafa, a computer science student participating in the planting, said she and her classmates look to transform their assigned lot so it will attract a variety of organisms, from insects to birds to animals.
Preserving biodiversity and ecosystems for future generations is one of the sustainability initiatives that are a central component of the Honors College’s strategic plan. Such initiatives “are integrated approaches to society and the environment that allow for individual and economic development,” noted Louis Hamilton, ADHC dean. “These projects model for our scholars the kind of civic-minded, engaged scientific leaders we expect them to become.”
The biodiversity project is a collaboration between ADHC, NJIT’s Federated Department of Biological Sciences (Senior University Lecturer Maria Stanko is also involved) and the university’s Facilities Services. ADHC helps purchase the plants and works with Facilities Services to select and prepare the campus site for landscaping, while the biology faculty charts observations with the Dorman Scholars throughout the year.
DeVan, for example, will accompany this year’s students, divided into groups, as they survey and photograph any flowering and fruiting as well as the number and types of organisms found on the plants or the surrounding soil. They will share their results with one another via a Google spreadsheet, and then develop and present proposals for next year’s first-years to further increase biodiversity on campus.
The students will also upload their data and pictures to iNaturalist, a website for both citizen and professional scientists, “so they potentially could be contributing to other scientific endeavors,” DeVan pointed out.
With each first-year class building upon the discoveries of their predecessors, and with plans for the biodiversity project to continue indefinitely, the goal is “that over time, we will be able to measure real positive improvements in the biodiversity of our campus’s ecology,” said Hamilton, who lauds the support from faculty and facilities administration, particularly Director of Facilities Management Charles Nieves, Supervisor/Foreman Luis Nieves and Associate Vice President of Facilities Services Ronald Martucci.
Joining in the experience is proving to be a great way for Mostafa to get to know her fellow Dorman Scholars and the larger NJIT community. But even more so, it is providing her with the opportunity to have an impact on both incoming Honors College students and the university environment.
“Every little bit helps,” she said. “So we can hopefully make a bit of a better environment for everyone in the future.”
