Hello! We are the Mint Oreos, and our team members are Zachary Schaeffer and Kaitlyn Brown. Zach is a first year and a Secondary Education History major. Kaitlyn is a first year and a Secondary Education English major. For our service project, our group went to Rock Hollow Woods to help clean the land and remove invasive species. We were assigned two days to work for 4 hours each from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. The first day of volunteering was on March 19th. For most of the day, we spent time hoeing and shoveling out an invasive grass species called Japanese stilt grass from a flowerbed that will eventually be replanted with flowers. It is a species from Asia, and it expands to cover large areas that prevent desirable vegetation from growing. We also spent about an hour carrying rocks down a path towards an observation platform to create a natural pathway for visitors to explore the park. After all of these projects, we ended the first day with collecting glass that was found in the ground. The glass came from the previous owners of the land who used the area as a trash dump.
On April 20, we had to present our service and research project to the Penn State campus and the surrounding community. Since we only had one day of service under our belt, we focused most of our conversation efforts on our research component, which was coral bleaching. We chose this topic since we both had an interest in it. Kaitlyn learned about it through her geography class last semester while Zach presented a speech on coral decline. It is an event where coral loses its color due to increasing water temps and rising CO2 levels in the ocean. Mass coral bleaching can occur during El Nino events where warmer water is brought to the equator which results in more rain than usual in South and Central America and the United States. Coral bleaching usually occurs in mass quantities. For example, the earliest recorded mass coral bleaching event happened in 1988 while the most recent event was recorded in 2017. It is predicted that more than 90% of the world’s coral reefs will die by 2050.
For the second day, we went to work on April 23. We ended up doing a few more projects this time than last time. To start off, we helped remove an invasive species called wineberries. This plant is dense with many thorns, and it crowds out native plants, blocks out sunlight from reaching lower plants, and makes hunting, fishing, hiking, etc. areas inaccessible. We spent about 2-3 hours removing those from a trail. After that, we had to help move painted tree stumps up a hill towards a play/learning area for children to look at. After that was finished, our group got to help unpack brand new archery equipment for a class that Rock Hollow was hosting. Those two activities took about an hour, and we only had a half hour left. With that last bit of time, we got to paint the words, “explore”, “discover”, “grow”, and “love nature” on a few logs. These words represented the motto that Rock Hollow follows. Collectively, that was our time and experience at Rock Hollow Woods.
Throughout the project, our team learned more about our research issue and were able to help the environment. We enjoyed being able to work together with other people to try and clean the environment as well. Getting to help remove invasive species was oddly satisfying as we cleaned out a spot for more beautiful and pleasant things to grow. The research portion helped us learn more about the world we live in and the environment around us. It is safe to say that we have a renewed pleasure for the environment and the world we live in.
