First-year students work to create North Campus field guide

UB’s North Campus offers the perfect environment in which abundant biodiversity, rich history, and nature and technology intersect to showcase a world-class research university. With so much to see, explore and learn about campus, wouldn’t a free, versatile guide that fits in your back pocket — or on your phone — be valuable?  

During the fall semester, students in “UB Seminar EVS 199” set out to develop a North Campus field guide. The course offers students an in-depth look at field guides; their importance in understanding local history, ecology and future plans; and how they’ve developed over time. Students explored a wide variety of guides, ranging to medieval and ancient Greek guides to modern, interactive guides in formats that include audio, video, print, digital and human.

“I really wanted to connect with first-year students who are curious about the campus and the environment the campus is situated in,” says course instructor Marisa Manheim, assistant professor in the Department of Environment and Sustainability (EVS).

“There are always stories behind why things are the way that they are, and as a newcomer to Buffalo who wants to be here for a long time, I want to learn alongside my students about all of it,” adds Manheim.

While the digital world has changed the way information is delivered in field guides, their structure has stayed consistent over thousands of years dating back to the first known guide, “De Materia Medica” (50–70 CE), remaining heavily text-based, with accompanying photos or illustrations and taxonomy (classification of organisms). The students in the class embraced this format and chose to focus on different chapters for the field guide. The chapters include edible and medicinal plants; flowering trees; common trees in Letchworth Teaching Forest; making the most of UB’s greenspace; critters of the North Campus; carbon-sequestering trees; mental health help at UB; spots where benches are needed; being an environmentally conscious student; and zero waste on campus.

“One student even developed a blog and another created a story map of the Ellicott Complex because of its complexity. The students started by assessing the available information about their topic, and since there often wasn’t much available about North Campus, many students did original research, including surveys and interviews, to fill information gaps and compile the information included in their guides,” Manheim explains. 

The story map of Ellicott was created by Dominic Ingrao, an environmental science student. “When I first came to UB, I was really scared to be in a big, new area all by myself, and I felt really lost,” Ingrao says. “So I wanted to create my guide as not only a way for me to educate myself on the place I’ll be calling home this year, but to help other new residents and first-years with their UB dorming experience.”

Class visits from key faculty and staff members including Daniel Seiders, a landscape architectural planner in Campus Planning, helped the students learn more about possible content for the field guide by giving them a guided campus tour.

“I tried to help them see the campus through the lens of landscape architecture and the ways North Campus has evolved over time,” Seiders explains.

“I think it’s important for students to form a strong relationship with the landscape. There’s a lot of opportunity for experiential learning out there.”

Students also met a real-life field guide: Ira Sanford “Sandy” Geffner, who led the class through some plant and bird identification in Letchworth Teaching Forest, or as he described it, “meeting our neighbors.” Geffner, environmental studies program coordinator and director of internships and experiential learning in EVS, helped inform the direction of the field guides, inspiring many students to focus on topics related to Letchworth Woods and campus ecology.

Derek Nichols, associate director for sustainability in UB’s Office of Sustainability also visited the class and presented information on campus sustainability planning. He inspired many students to focus on these topics in their guides.

“What was nice about the visits from Daniel and Derek is that they talked about history and future plans, which really helped build agency for the students because they could see how things can change,” says Manheim.

UB Seminar is a foundational course that all incoming students are required to take in their first semester of enrollment; it can be taken in any department and instructors can offer the course on any topic. According to the course description, it is “focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world.” And as Manheim and the students in the class can attest, it’s turned into much more than that.

“I feel very excited about what we are starting here,” says Manheim. “People tend to underestimate the power students can have and I can tell you through this course they are building agency, are sharing their discoveries and are learning to advocate for a better campus experience.”

“This class is important because it teaches me and connects me to the community I will be living and learning in for four years,” adds Adrian Mohr, a student in linguistics. “I’ve made friends and connections, and I’m adding a minor just because of this class.”

The field guide will be available digitally in the spring semester. As the course is taught in the future, chapters will be added to the field guide for the UB community to learn, explore and enjoy the North Campus.