Category: Penn State Berks Center for the Agricultural Sciences and a Sustainable Environment (CASSE)

Weedwhackers Whacking Weeds

Charbel DoumitFall 2024 Project Teams

Introductions

Charbel – Third-year Business major at PSU (back left)

Sourya- Second-year Finance major at PSU (back right)

Yug- First-year Accounting major at PSU (front right)

Julius – Second-year Hospitality Management major at PSU (front left)

Research Overview

For our EACAP project, we decided to focus on invasive species as they were an earlier topic in our class discussions and we thought they were an important topic to research. We already know that invasive species grow rapidly in population whether it’s a plant or an animal. They destroy environments and use up resources at an increasing rate due to the population increase, they also don’t typically have natural predators because they are introduced to new environments and grow unchecked within ecosystems. To help control invasive species within ecosystems, people can set traps to control animal species and chemicals for plant species. It’s good to raise public awareness for invasive species so they can either help stop the growth in population of invasive species or try to control it until a better solution is found. 

Research Presentation

Our narrated presentation includes images that backup the main points we talked about with invasive species being, general information, possible causes, consequences, solutions and goals regarding our research outline.

Research Presentation

Service Overview

For our service project, we contacted Larissa Miller to help with the Peiffer Farmhouse across the road from the campus at Berks. We helped around the electric fence by picking the weeds that were overgrown and cleared up space for the fence to function properly. We also helped clean up sticks and more weeds around the greenhouse area to make the space look more neat and stop the weeds from covering the trees and plants. This also fits into our research topic because weeds are an invasive species that compete with other plants for resources like sunlight and water.

Service Video

Reflection

Overall, we enjoyed doing this project because we could all work together to finish this project, we all had fun working on the farm and picking the weeds even while getting bit by bugs the whole time. Learning more about invasive species and putting together a presentation of our information, and finally presenting our information in the community expo for people to see what we did during the semester. Our message to the people would be to keep in mind how the environment works and what you can do to help make it a better place for everyone.

Terra Team Service Project

Brett MiseraBerks County Conservation District

Our group consists of four members, Brycen, Brett, Preston, and Nate. Brycen is a freshman and a business major, Brett is a freshman and undecided, Preston is a freshman and an accounting major, and Nate is a senior and a Criminal Justice major. 

 

For our service project, we worked at the Tyson elementary school in Reading Pa. In a seemingly poverty-stricken region of Reading, we were doing gods work by purifying this garden for these children. We worked with the Salvation Army, other volunteers, and the Berks conservation district. While working on the garden, we cleaned up scattered blocks, pulled weeds, removed trash, and trimmed branches of overgrown trees. Additionally, we spent time painting flower pots which were old and decrepit looking. Whilst afterward filling them with quality dirt and vegetable seeds. To complete our hours we also plan to work with John Rost on tasks around our Penn State Greenhouse area. 

Research Link:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=43c28d7f92&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1751402816030548694&th=184e3b94f41ea2d6&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=f_lbb0j62a0

 

Service Presentation – Google Slides.webm

Team CMTK is for the bees!

cao5400Penn State Berks Center for the Agricultural Sciences and a Sustainable Environment (CASSE)

Hello everyone, we are team CMTK! Our Eacap project was all about the decline in the bee population. Our research focused on the risks that many of our pollinators die from, such as pesticides and parasites. For our community service, we worked on a bee hotel at the PSU Berk’s greenhouse.

 

Summary of service-

Our service goal was to create a bee hotel to help sustain the native bee population in our area. We first did this by gathering a lot of bamboo from behind the school. We then cut these pieces of bamboo into 6 inches. Before gluing them into a pre-cut honeycomb design, we had to let them dry and condense for about a week. We then ready to glue all of the dried-out bamboo on, creating little sections for the bees to lay their eggs.

Service Video
IMG_172553281 (7)

Brochure
Yellow Blue Professional Travel Packages Trifold Brochure (1)

Summary of research-
For our research, we kept to the same topic of the decline in bee population. We conducted our research on the different factors that are threatening the bee population, what would happen without bees, and means for change. For the causes in decline, we found that habitat loss, invasive parasites, and the use of synthetic pesticides to be causes. We learned that without our pollinators, we would not have the cultivated goods we have today, such as produce. We went over many solutions, but sound bee hotels to be the most realistic and long-term.

Reflection-

  • All and all, we learned a lot from our EACAP project. Between cutting and gluing bamboo together, digging the holes for the bee habitat to be submerged in the ground, and conducting research about what threats the bees face, our EACAP module taught us a lot. We got to work together as a team and with our organization, and we also learned a lot about the decline in bee populations. Personally, we all know that bees and other pollinators are an important part of our ecosystem. Getting the opportunity to expand our knowledge to the fullest by diving into this topic was really important. The importance of finding a worthy cause and educating others about it was one of our main takeaways from this assignment. This earth day, we were happy to share our experience with you all. We are not just Penn State, but we are for the bees!

 

 

 

Lanternflyer Fighters Service in Pictures

wxg5105Events

Our last team meeting for our lantern fly community service took place on Thursday October 31st. We noticed that the amount of lantern flies on the trees had significantly decreased from the amounts recorded in our first meeting. We spent our last meeting taking down the tape from the trees around campus and counting the remaining flies. During this we took a few pictures which we have posted a couple of here:

 

Couple of fun facts we discovered:

  • Females are larger than males and are identified by a red backside
  • The Lantern Fly eggs are laid in late fall and can survive severe winter weather
  • The Lantern Fly is native to Southeast Asia

Overall this project has been a unique and informative experience. We all learned a lot about Lantern Flies and how to control their population. Our collaborative effort as a team has been great this semester. We were very driven and focused with our project

Final Post

Mason Scott PennypackerBird Gang

And just like that, it’s a wrap for Bird Gang! What a great semester it was and a great project to be apart of. To summarize our semester, we started off as 4 guys who did not know much about the environment or the rain barrel project. But now, we are fully equipped with ways to help save the environment, reduce our ecological footprint, and help save water using unique rain barres. We ended our semester by taking part in the earth day festival in gauge, and it was a great success. We helped educate people about different types of pollution and informing individuals about the rain barrel project. We all created our own rain barrels that will be sold to people and used at there houses to help save water. We even did a research paper about the different types of pollution, focusing on land pollution, ocean pollution, and nuclear pollution. Our thoughts on this class and the projects were nothing but great, we all had a great time together learning about the environment and the topic of pollution. We all learned a lot and we can not wait to take the skills we learned and take them with us throughout our life! Thank you for following our journey, we hoped you guys enjoyed our page!

Updated Progress so far…

Mason Scott PennypackerBird Gang

Hi everyone, Bird Gang is currently in the process of trying to schedule a meeting with our ECAP advisor. Once this task is complete, we will gain a better knowledge of what exactly we will have to paint on these rain barrels. We, as a team, are excited to be able to show are creative side off and help educate people all about the environment. We decided to focus our research paper on the topic of pollution with subtopics including: ocean pollution, land pollution, and nuclear pollution. We are currently in the process of collecting all the data and information needed for this report. We will keep everyone posted once we gain further information!

Meet our Wacky Green Team

cse5069Bird Gang

Who are we?

Bird Gang

  • Team Members
    • Chase Endy (All the way to the right)
      • Major: Security Risk Analysis/ IST
      • Year: Junior
    • Mason Pennypacker (All the way to the left)
      • Major: Criminal Justice
      • Year: Junior
    • Steve Schwartz (In the middle)
      • Major: Business/Marketing Management
      • Year: Freshman
    • Mike Schiavo (In the back)
      • Major: Rehabilitation and Human Services
      • Year: Junior
  • We will be working with the PSU Berks Horticulture Center painting rain barrels, we are looking forward to using our creativity in making the rain barrels look better.

 

The Berks Bees Creating Local Bee Shelters

William Robert KranichBerks Bees

Summary:

In a service project collaboration with the Penn State Berks Center for Environmental Sciences & Sustainability, The Berks Bees created three shelters for local bees.  These three shelters provide a place for Mason Bumble and Orchard bee to lay there eggs. This allows theses bees a shelter from predators, chemicals and weather conditions. Helping the bee population to be sustained and pollinate local plants and flowers in the area. Without these shelters many bees may not be able to find a safe place to lay there eggs or get out of the harsh elements.

 

Creating Bamboo Can Shelters:

None of the shelters were particularly hard to make however out of the two that we had made the bamboo can shelters were possibly the easiest. The requirements for the two bamboo shelters we had made consisted of sticks of bamboo, (similar materials can be found online) two cans, and some adhesive to keep the bamboo in. In order to acquire the bamboo we simply drove to the bamboo patch that was located on campus and went around to the back to grab some of the dead bamboo. It was important that most of the bamboo that we grabbed was dead that way it would not contract or get smaller as it dried out. After this, we went back to the Center for Environmental Sciences & Sustainability and began to cut the bamboo to the right size to fit in the cans. Once all the bamboo was nice and packed we glued all of them in and covered the cans with duct tape to prevent rust. The final step was to drill holes in the tops of the cans in order to insert the hangers. The hangers were metal wire that allowed the cans to be hung from trees. After this, the cans were ready to be hung on the trees next to the gauge building and the library.

 

Creating The Log Shelter:

   Making the Log shelter was slightly more challenging than making the bamboo shelters but in general was not very hard. We started by walking up the Tulpehocken river until we found a nice log. Then we wrapped the log in a towel and drove it to the Center for Environmental Sciences & Sustainability. Then we cut the top off and bolted a roof on. The purpose behind this was to keep the log dry so the bee would be more comfortable there. After this, we drilled holes in the log for the bees to lay there eggs in. (we chose to drill them in the shape of the letter B for the Berks Bees) This shelter is also resting outside between the gauge building and the library.

 

The Berks Bees Message:

If there’s a message that we can send here it’s that doing little things to help your environment can be fun and easy! Building bee shelters is far from a hard task and if more people did it for their local areas and gardens I think we could see a big difference in bee health as well as environmental health. Although we only made two types of shelters here there are hundreds that can be found online and a lot of them look really cool. It’s a fun activity for family or friends to engage in and help save the bees!