‘Wake-up call’: Waynesburg University students lead Earth Day celebrations year-round
Courtesy of Jesse Hazlett
Wayneburg University junior Jesse Hazlett, second from left, teaches a student how to construct a shed along the Unity Trail during a fall volunteer service day. Hazlett serves as president of the Ecostewards Club and leads efforts to make Greene County’s nature cleaner and more accessible to students and residents alike.
Courtesy of Jesse Hazlett
A group of Waynesburg University students enjoys a recent evening of camaraderie at the bonfire pit along the Unity Trail.
Courtesy of Jesse Hazlett
A section of the pollinator garden on Waynesburg University’s campus invites bees, butterflies and other pollinators to fly by and boost the local ecosystem. The Ecostewards will work with Carmichaels High School students this Earth Day to plant a second garden on campus, at the entrance to the Unity Trail.
Courtesy of Jesse Hazlett
The out-and-back Unity Trail, which begins on Waynesburg University’s campus, leads trailgoers three-quarters of a mile to Herman’s Run. The Ecostewards Club has plans to add to the trail.
Courtesy of Jesse Hazlett
The Ecostewards last month added a handmade, 10-foot-tall cross and enough bench seating for 50 people on the Unity Trail. The cross is constructed from a tree along the trail.
At Waynesburg University, every day is Earth Day.
“Earth Day should really just mean hope and promise,” said Jesse Hazlett, a junior environmental science major and president of the Ecostewards Club at Waynesburg University. “Everybody, when they walk out their doors, they can see the beautiful sights. Whether you believe in God or not, you have to admit that (Earth) is a beautiful sight, that it is a resource that we all have. If we treat it correctly, it will be here for thousands of years in the future. If we don’t treat it right, it can be gone just like that.”
In an effort to keep Earth around for generations, the Ecostewards are leading green initiatives and working to increase access to the outdoors for university students and Greene County residents alike.
This year, the club ramped up its restoration work on Unity Trail, a three-quarter-of-a-mile-out-and-back walking trail that leads adventurers from West College Street to Herman’s Run, where it loops like an eating utensil.
“We call it ‘The Spoon’ because it looks like a big spoon,” Hazlett laughed.
The Ecostewards added meditation sites for peace, prayer or reflection along the Unity Trail, and last month erected a handmade, 10-foot cross near the trail’s fire pit. Benches were installed at the cross, and a church service was recently held at the site, Hazlett said.
Some teachers hold classes along the trail, which will soon be accessible to folks unable to navigate Unity Trail’s gentle hills or out-of-towners seeking connection to Greene County’s beauty.
Dr. Janet Paladino, Director of Programs in Environmental Science and Studies and a professor of environmental science at Waynesburg University, said the school recently purchased a virtual reality platform and will film the trail using a 360-degree camera. When the experience goes live on the university’s website, viewers can move the video from side to side for a broader look at the area, and videos will be embedded within the main footage to give insight into various plant species and points of interest.
There is one plant in particular Paladino finds worthy of a VR tour.
“There’s a tree on the trail – it’s a very common tree in Greene County. It is called a box elder. The significance of this tree is that this location is … one of the last stopping points for the Monarch butterfly migration to Mexico,” she said. “They travel from here 1,500 miles to Mexico. They gather on this tree so that they can go together. Scientists that are studying this actually have identified that they come to the same tree and the same branch every (fall).”
While the Unity Trail offers a unique gathering space to Monarchs, all butterflies and other pollinator species reap the benefits of pollinator gardens planted on Waynesburg’s campus by the Ecostewards – a project that continues today, when Carmichaels High School students venture to the college to help with planting.
The high schoolers will assist the Ecostewards as volunteers plant the campus’ second pollinator garden at the entrance to the Unity Trail, Hazlett said. The declining population of native bee species is one impetus for the pollinator gardens, and this Earth Day planting is one piece of a larger Pollinator Pathway project the club is leading.
“We just received a $5,000 grant to plant pollinator gardens in different locations around Greene County,” Paladino said. “We’re actually trying to develop a pathway for them so that (pollinators) can go from location to location without getting too tired out.”
The Ecostewards environmental outreach is not limited to today’s collaboration with Carmichaels (an event that includes teaching high school students about local endangered species). Hazlett said this year, the club launched a three-part lecture series on the hazards of plastics that began with a documentary screening followed by a plastic upcycling event, and ends today with an informative Earth Day table in Johnson Commons.
Teaching a new generation to appreciate the environment fuels Hazlett, as well as hearing the impact of the Ecostewards’ work.
“On of my favorite slap-in-the-face moments: I was sitting down with a group of youth group kids,” said Hazlett, who also volunteers with children’s after-school programs. “They were interested in what we do. I was telling them about the trail. One of the student’s faces lit up. He said, ‘You mean that one with the brick wall?’ All the forts that I found (along the trail) were actually made by those students. It was being used over the summer; it was being used by kids I spend a lot of time with.”
Breathing life into Greene County is an ongoing project, but Hazlett is determined to make an impact during his four years at Waynesburg University. This school year was his first as Ecostewards president, and he is proud of everything the club accomplished.
“I started (at WU) in 2019, and the Unity Trail … was a very fresh project. It was looking for some very impassioned people to work on it. In the past three alone, Dr. Paladino especially has put so much effort into promoting this program,” said Hazlett, noting there are currently 15 Ecostewards Club members. “This year, I had the awesome opportunity to welcome a bunch of non-environmental science majors into our club. Those different skillsets were able to really propel us into a new level of getting things done. I honestly don’t believe that we would be able to get anymore done if we had a group of 50.”
The work continues this summer. The Ecostewards have plans to care for the Unity Trail when school lets out at the end of May, and the club aims to have the augmented reality trail experience online by this fall. A restoration project is in the works at Wisecarver Reservoir, and work on the Pollinator Pathway will continue into next year.
“Greene County is a county that wants to extend its reaches whenever it comes to the environment, but I don’t know if we know how to do this. Historically, this area has lots of mineage, acid mine drainage, and runoff, and a lot of pollution,” said Hazlett. “I think Greene County is trying to combat that at the moment. I think that they just need programs such as the Unity Trail and the Pollinator Pathway and things like that to really jumpstart a lot of change.”
And Earth Day is a great day to begin – or continue – the work that is caring for this planet.
“The start of the environmental movement was Earth Day. It’s a wake-up call for a lot of people,” said Paladino. “There’s attention given to the environment for a very short time. It really should be a wakeup call that we really have to pay more attention to what is going on.
“Climate change is real. You can see the effects of climate change … in Greene County. We all can do our part to do things that are more sustainable.”
Those interested in volunteering at the Unity Trail are invited to email Dr. Janet Paladino for more information at jpaladin@waynesburg.edu.