With the assistance of the scholars’ work, Lehigh earned the popularity in April. The college grew to become considered one of 411 campuses within the nation to realize the excellence by assembly 5 requirements: a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, devoted annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and pupil service-learning challenge.
A campus tree stock had been within the works at Lehigh, however was placed on maintain as a result of coronavirus pandemic. The plan was to gather information that included the species of timber, their diameter at breast top and site, and to generate a map of the timber on campus. That baseline information would enable Lehigh to remeasure the timber once more in just a few years and estimate the quantity of carbon every tree sequesters.
With the Workplace of Sustainability making use of for the Tree Campus USA certification, the push to finish the stock was revived. Ecologist Robert Sales space, professor of earth and environmental sciences, educated the scholars to make use of the circumference tape and aided them in tree identification. Sales space additionally accompanied the scholars on a few of their campus expeditions as they collected information to calculate every tree’s biomass.
As an alternative of cataloging each tree at Lehigh, and since there’s already information accessible on most of the timber on South Mountain from Sales space’s ecology course, the workforce centered on the Asa Packer campus. Additionally they picked an space that was consultant of the tree variety throughout campus so the information may very well be extrapolated, in keeping with Sales space.
“It gave me the prospect to understand nature and Lehigh’s campus from a brand new perspective,” Quawiy mentioned. “Measuring timber for 3 hours would possibly sound boring at first, but it surely was truly very enjoyable.”
Within the spring, college students labored with Ben Felzer, affiliate professor of environmental sciences, who launched them to allometric equations, which may estimate the quantity of carbon within the timber. The scholars additionally constructed an interactive net map with their information that can be utilized for a digital campus tree tour.
As well as, the scholars hosted an in-person tree tour on Arbor Day, showcasing a few of the timber they cataloged and demonstrating how they measured the timber. John Schleder, an arborist with BrightView Panorama, supplied further data on the timber, and the group planted a Princeton American elm tree on the Clayton College Middle garden.
