CGUS Research Aiming to Create Sustainable and Resilient Ecosystems
Life University ’ s College of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies ( CGUS ) is conducting research in various areas across the College and creating opportunities for students that go beyond what they are learning in the classroom . Dr . Stephanie Wakefield , program coordinator of the Human Ecology program and research chair for CGUS , has multiple research projects in progress that are designed to give students experiential learning opportunities and realword experiences in building sustainability and resilience in our local ecosystems . She summarizes the main goal of the current projects as being “ all about building positive , social-ecological change in a concrete , real way .”
Some of the major goals of research in Life U ’ s Human Ecology program are :
• to form a collaborative community network with other schools , businesses and organizations working on resiliency projects .
• to build strong , sustainable and resilient human ecological systems .
• to give students the opportunity to have real experiences that will make a lasting impact .
The broadest research area that is currently being studied is a long-term , social-ecological research project centered on Rottenwood Creek , a tributary of the Chattahoochee River that is located on Life U ’ s campus . Inspired by the research being done on larger ecosystems like the Everglades and urban ecosystems like Baltimore , the Rottenwood Creek project aims to become a collaborative , multifaceted research project that helps answer some of the big 21st century questions in the area when it comes to water futures , water quality , human uses of water and restoring our access to water . The vision of the project is to eventually support other disciplines in CGUS carry out their own individual research centered around the creek . Other future collaboration hopes include creating pathways with high schools that are along the watershed in order to learn and study the creek from many disciplinary perspectives .
The Rottenwood Creek and its surrounding trails and woods on campus have not previously been studied , which makes this research area particularly innovative and unique . The project has begun with two main initiatives :
1 . Georgia Adopt-A-Stream ( AAS ) — This program monitors the water quality of the waterways throughout the state . Different groups , such as Life University and others , select a body of water that they “ adopt .” Life University has adopted the stretch of Rottenwood Creek that is on Life U ’ s campus . Last spring , the Human Ecology program held an open workshop in which faculty and students were certified through AAS to conduct chemical water quality testing . Students and faculty collect data on the water each month and input this into the AAS database , which everyone in the community monitors together . This allows the community to track changes in the water over time and become aware of problem areas , such as spills or other types of pollution . The AAS program also hosts annual conferences that give students the opportunity to present their research .
2 . Analyze and Design — The second branch of the Rottenwood Creek study allows students to analyze the different human uses of that specific ecosystem both in the past and present . Students then design sustainable architectures or changes to the area for future improvement , such as removing invasive species or designing nature-as-infrastructure systems . Students are also participating in a listening project that includes video interviews with community stakeholders that provide an oral history of the usage of the area and hopes for the future . Students are taking what they learn from the interviews and creating proposals for improvements , such as an outdoor classroom that is built in an environmentally friendly way .
Destinee Rivera , a CGUS student and double major in Biology and Human Ecology , has been highly involved in these projects and says she is excited about the potential ideas for the future , such as creating an outdoor classroom , potentially getting the watermill functioning and using it to power some of the holiday lights on campus , and possibly getting a greenhouse in the gardens . She hopes Life U can “ set the trend to show people that it is possible that a college with students doing the work and putting in the time and effort will show that if we can do it , then anyone else can [ create sustainable and resilient ecosystems ]. She also says that “ If just one person does something more respectfully toward the environment , it has a cascading effect , and I think it will do a lot more good than we originally thought .” Because of these projects , she feels more hopeful in the future of our ecosystems .
The Human Ecology program plans to continue building on the Rottenwood research by establishing an online , multimedia ‘ hub ’ to bring all of the research together and communicate it outward to the community in visually interesting and contemporary ways .
50 Alumni . LIFE . edu | 2021