Crafting a Campus Sustainability Action Plan: A Grassroots Approach

In recent decades, colleges and universities have taken a leadership role in developing institution-based Sustainability Action Plans (SAPs). A SAP includes a summation of past achievements, current initiatives, and the prioritized goals and implementation strategies for future action in terms of promoting environmental sustainability. These plans can also serve as pedagogical devices that teach students, staff and faculty important lessons of intentional living, global citizenship, and environmental responsibility. While many plans are adopted as top-down initiatives, there is great value in finding ways to engage the entire campus community in such endeavors at the grassroots level. This project documents a ground-up approach to developing a SAP at Gettysburg College, a liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania. Consisting of three phases, the project began with an assessment of current sustainability accomplishments as detailed in ASHE’s Sustainability Tracking and Rating System (STARS) data base. The second stage included an investigation of recent SAPs adopted by peer institutions and work by the college’s Sustainability Advisory Committee, President’s Office and student groups to develop and implement as campus survey on potential sustainability priorities. Finally, a series of focus groups consisting of various campus constituencies provided input for crafting a final draft SAP, which was then offered to the campus community for a second round of review. This bottom-up approach helped to cultivate grassroots ownership of the resulting SAP, leading to a greater likelihood of successful implementation. This project may serve as a useful model for other liberal arts institutions

Fearless Friday: Laila Mufty

In today’s Fearless Friday, Surge would like to honor the work of Laila Mufty ‘18. Laila is a sophomore from the Bay Area in California and is majoring in Environmental Studies. Currently, she is one of the CPS Program Coordinators with Big Brothers Big Sisters and is the Immersion Project Leader for the New Orleans trip in May focused on the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. In addition to her work with CPS, Laila participates in multiple cultural organizations on campus and has volunteered with El Centro, Painted Turtle Farm and Casa de la Cultura. Laila has also written and edited for Surge in the past. [excerpt

Spatial and Temporal Relationships Between Forest Bird Declines and Prevalence of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in the Northeastern United States

The eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is a vital foundation tree species throughout the eastern United States, providing essential structural diversity and habitat for more than 120 different animal species. Within the past few decades, T. canadensis has undergone significant declines that are largely associated with the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA; Adelges tsugae), an exotic, aphid-like insect native to East Asia. From the 1970s to present day, the HWA has spread throughout southern New England, large portions of the Mid-Atlantic region, and parts of Tennessee and the Carolinas. Research has shown that loss of the eastern hemlock is drastically altering forest community structures, potentially impacting a wide variety of forest fauna, including avian populations strongly associated with hemlock forests. Here we present research investigating the correlation between HWA prevalence and recent declines of hemlock-associated forest birds in the Eastern US. We analyzed bird population trends data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), US Forest Service HWA data, and land cover data to analyze the population trends of hemlock-associated and forest generalist species in association with the arrival of HWA, taking hemlock density into account. We found a significant correlation between the timing of HWA arrival and declines of conifer forest specialist birds. The Black-throated Green Warbler and the Blue-headed Vireo exhibited significant decline along survey routes after HWA arrival. Populations of some forest generalists (Tufted Titmouse, White-Breasted Nuthatch) were unaffected and continued to increase linearly, while others (Red-Eyed Vireo, Ovenbird) showed minor decrease in population

The Melting ‘Crown of the Continent’: Visual History of Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park (GNP), located in northwest Montana, US, was signed into existence on 11 May 1910 by then President William Howard Taft. Conservationist George Bird Grinnell was instrumental in lobbying for the park’s creation and negotiated the sale with the Blackfeet Indians. As an editor of the outdoor magazine Field and Stream, Grinnell learned about the region from writer James Willard Schultz and made his first visit there in 1885. Enticed and amazed by the glaciers of the area, the high Rocky Mountain alpine terrain, and the flora and fauna that thrived here, Grinnell advocated for the creation of the park, nicknaming it the “Crown of the Continent.” Grinnell recognized glaciers as a geological wonder. As historian Gerald Diettert records in his 1992 book, Grinnell called the glaciers the “jewels” in the crown. Setting aside land to enjoy the glaciers seemed like a logical means to conserve the landscapes and ecosystems that they supported. Yet today, just about a hundred years from when the park was founded, the glaciers that form GNP’s snow-capped crown are close to extinction. [excerpt

The State of the Upper Bay of Panama Wetlands: Ecological Significance, Environmental Policy, Urbanization, and Social Justice

I conducted this research while studying abroad with SIT Panama: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation. This is a multidisciplinary investigation of the Upper Bay of Panama wetlands, a 49,000 hectare region east of Panama City that features mangrove, intertidal mudflat, and grassland habitat internationally recognized as a stopover site for two million shorebirds every migration season. However, with economic pressure to increase urban development in the area, this land’s protected status under the Ramsar convention was suspended for a year in April 2012. By compiling scientific studies, news articles, photographs, and interviews with local conservationists and community members, this project describes the ecological, political, and social conditions surrounding this area today. I found that this ecosystem contains plentiful nutrients from both seasonal upwelling and mangrove detritus, supporting a thriving aquatic food chain, including major fisheries, but also experiences garbage, agrochemical, and heavy metal inputs from human activities. Because of reduced infiltration caused by new developments, plus ongoing construction, much of the eastern Panama City district of Juan Díaz is now regularly subject to flooding too severe for its current drainage system to control, for which I provided photographic evidence, and receives little compensation. By law, though, Panama’s government is obligated to protect these people’s right to live in a healthy environment. Strategies for ecosystem management should be planned for the long-term and include economic incentives, citizen involvement, and government support. There is also a need to promote education of wetlands ecosystem benefits and the repercussions of their removal

The Disparity Between Scientific Consensus and American Public Opinion of Genetically Modified Organisms and Genetic Engineering

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetic engineering (GE) are accepted as safe and useful by the consensus of the scientific community. Their diverse utility has shown promise in addressing major challenges of the 21st century, including world hunger, global warming, and the prevalence of diet-related diseases (e.g. heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.). A 2014 Pew Research Center survey revealed that while 88% of scientists agreed that GM foods were safe to eat, only 37% of American consumers agreed. Furthermore, only 35% of U.S. adults trusted scientists to accurately inform the public about GMOs. To explain this disparity, I synthesize information about stakeholders in GMOs and GE, demographics linked to acceptance and denial, interpretation of scientific consensus, psychological mechanisms controlling bias, and poor practice of science. Analysis reveals that the disparity in GMO and GE perception between the scientific community and the American public was caused by bad science, foreign political agendas, profit-driven media, and psychological factors, such as intuitive expectations, soft attitudes, and the backfire effect; furthermore, I show that despite innate conduits for bias development, educated, high income, and youthful demographics will shrink the gap between scientific consensus and public opinion if GMO education and equal access to education increase

Changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet of the Southeastern Maniitsoq Coast from 1994-2004 and 2009-2019

Remote sensing mechanisms through the use of technology like the Landsat 5-7 Land Manager satellites are commonly used in conjunction with multispectral methods such as unsupervised classification to record and analyze changes in snow and ice over time in areas such as the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Unsupervised classification is a method of identifying, grouping, and labeling features in an image according to their spectral values and is therefore a good method of classifying snow and ice in areas such as Greenland. The goal of unsupervised classifications is to assign pixels into potentially meaningful subsurface classes based on similarities of geophysical responses, in order to create a final product that displays an accurate class map of the land cover of the area (Kvamme, 2019). Within the southwestern region of Greenland is the town Maniitsoq along the (GrIS) that is surrounded by natural canal-like channels and located in the Qeqqata municipality. The southwestern Maniitsoq Greenland territory lies within the northernmost area south of the Arctic Circle and contains big, long, and deep glaciers. Temperatures in southern Greenland do not exceed 20 °C within the summer months of June, July, or August. Greenland is warmest and driest on land closest to the ice sheet during these summer months (Topas Travel, 2019). The location of our study area, the southwestern region of Greenland near Maniitsoq, was captured with Landsat imagery. The ice land cover was classified into three different sectional groups: changed snow/ice, unchanged snow/ice, and other. The research question of this project is as follows: how have the Greenland Ice Sheet glaciers along the eastern coast and inland Greenland changed from June through August of 1994-2004 and 2009-2019

The Environment and Civil War: Exploring the Relationship Between the Environmental Performance Index and Incidence of Internal Armed Conflict

The state of the environment is receiving increasing attention. Environmental quality’s possible relationship to violent conflict attracts both popular and academic interest. Prior research has found support for the idea that environmental scarcity is related to higher occurrences of civil war. There have been few comprehensive quantitative studies regarding this relationship. This study tests a more general argument that higher environmental quality can lead to fewer occurrences of internal armed conflict. The study utilizes an environmental performance index found in the Quality of Government Standard Dataset to test its hypothesis. The study finds that the higher the environmental performance index of a state, the lower the annual incidence of internal armed conflict. The relationship found in this study should inspire further research on the relationship between environmental quality and civil war. Further attention to this subject may encourage increased priority toward environmental policy to prevent the incidence of civil war

G-Bikes: Gettysburg Bike Share

The focus of this paper was to asses Gettysburg as possible location to implement a bike share program and ultimately to propose a framework for a successful program. We evaluated bike share programs across North America and created a list of criteria of successful programs. The second part of our data collection included a Google Forms survey which targeted three demographics, students, locals and tourists. We targeted our focus groups by posting on Facebook pages frequented by each demographic, as well as administering the survey in person with smart phones in Lincoln Square in Gettysburg. Our survey generated 134 responses, 86 of which were students, 27 locals, and 21 tourists. Our research showed that, demographically, successful programs occur in areas with high traffic from college students and tourists, as well as support from the local population. On the technical side, successful programs have 10-30 bikes per 10,000 residents with bike stations that range from 1-2 miles apart, averaging 4-8 trips per day, per bike. Our survey showed that a bike share program in Gettysburg would receive heavy support from our three demographics. It also showed that the largest concern from each demographic was bike related travel during the winter months which is consistent with the other programs we studied. Based on our research, we propose that the G-Bikes program should have 5 stations located at the top five intended locations of visitation, Gettysburg Town Center, Gettysburg College, Little Round Top, The Observation Tower, and on Steinwehr Avenue near the National Cemetery. Based off the overall population we recommend that the program start with a minimum of 20 bikes. We also recommend that the bike models follow the oBike specs from European bike share programs to maximize user convenience and minimize the threat of theft and vandalism. Through our study we determined Gettysburg\u27s unique niche as a small college town and tourist hub to be a possible location to implement a successful bike share program that implements many of the similar characteristics of other tourist destinations we studied

Clearcutting in Appalachia: Impacts on Stream Water Quality in an Appalachian Watershed

Clearcutting forests has the potential to impact the water quality of high water headwater streams. In this study, we measured the effect of forest clearcut events on parameters of stream water quality within Michaux State Forest. The watershed of two streams included 2.1% and 11.6% of the total catchment in clearcuts, while the other 4 watersheds had no clearcuts. We measured pH, electrical conductivity, total suspended solids, and nitrate (ppm) and phosphate (ppm) concentrations from six different tributary streams. Mann-Whitney U tests maintain no statistical difference observed between pH (U= 4.00, p= 1.00), temperature (U=1.00, p=0.165), electrical conductivity (U=2.00, p=0.355), suspended solids (U=2.00, p=0.325), nitrate concentration (U=2.00, p=0.264), or phosphate concentration (U=2.00, p=0.340). However, post-hoc analysis confirms stream 6 as an upper outlier for electrical conductivity (EC= 86.8 uS). This may be due to this site’s proximity to a busy road. These results suggest that there is no significant impact of clearcutting on stream water quality in Michaux State Forest. However, further repetition of this experiment would be necessary to make this conclusion statistically robust