NATURE CLUB In hopes of getting others interested in exploring the natural world around them through hikes, lake clean-ups, academic excursions, birding, and more, a group of Wesleyan students created the Nature Club in 2020. Jordan Looney ’21, a senior psychology major and Nature Club president, credits Wesleyan for sparking her interest in the outdoors and her desire to start the club. “I was never a big nature person before enrolling at Wesleyan,” said Looney. “I started getting more connected with nature because of the College’s outdoor spaces. I grew to love the arboretum and exploring around the lake. My friend and I would go on hikes out there all of the time.” The Nature Club’s mission is to get students outside. Looney feels that the club can be a perfect way to get students outdoors and having fun, especially while social distancing guidelines are in place. “All students have the chance to experience and enjoy Wesleyan’s natural surroundings,” said Looney. “Everyone should go outside and enjoy it. I don’t know of many colleges that have an arboretum, a pergola, or a lake. I think it’s really cool that we have so much to offer.” Looney graduated in May and she knows that the future of the club is in good hands. “It’s really refreshing to see club members’ excitement,” said Looney. “I was happy to hand everything off because they want to do great; they will do great.”
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BIRD’S NEST Early in the spring semester, Jim Ferrari, Wesleyan’s department chair for biology and arboretum director, and students in his conservation biology lab class built nest boxes (nest tubes) in hopes of attracting Rough-winged Swallows to nest. A summer bird, these swallows arrive as early as mid-March but typically come to the area in May and June to nest and raise their young. In previous years, Ferrari noticed that swallows would fly around campus showing interest in using it as a place to lay eggs, but would leave without nesting. Because they typically nest in tunnels or tree cavities highly coveted by many other species, he surmised they left due to limited nest site locations. This gave rise to his idea of creating boxes to help the swallows while providing a fun educational project for his students. “I thought it could be a great teaching opportunity for my conservation biology students,” said Ferrari. “It was a different type of lab that was similar to a woodshop where we’d build something and [if the birds nest] give students an opportunity to monitor them, band them, and hopefully recapture the birds in a future year.” Ferrari designed the boxes and cut all the lumber pieces himself, but left everything else to his students. “It was all very hands-on
working with tools,” said Ferrari. “The students had to drill the holes, put the hinges on, mount the plastic tube, and assemble the boxes themselves. For a lot of them, it was the first time that they had used a drill or tried to make something out of wood.” The students assembled ten boxes, each having three feet of PVC pipe simulating a tunnel with a wooden box at one end. Inside each box is an endoscope (a thick wire with a video camera at the end) that sends the image via Bluetooth back to the classroom. When completed, they were suspended over the roof of Munroe Science Center with the hope that swallows see the openings and might decide to lay their eggs there. The class plans to leave the boxes in place for a few months to monitor activity in the nests. Ferrari believes that the project was beneficial for his class. “I think they enjoyed it. It was a pretty different project than what we’d usually do. A lot of people in our department build their own apparatuses. I felt it was important to show the students some basic skills working with wood, screwdrivers, and tools, allowing them to develop those skills, and most importantly, demonstrating they are capable and giving them the confidence to bring to fruition their own ideas. The project turned out to be very satisfying.”
