TCNJ

9 Prairie SPRING 2022 PETER MURPHY increase the biodiversity of pollinators on campus. "Somewhere around 30% of food requires pollination," Shakow says. "To support pollinators, you need native plants." Hannah Beckett '23, a self-designed major in environmental sustainability, helped to draft the new landscaping plan. She says the policy sets forth a series of "larger goals and ideas." Among the policy's objectives: reducing carbon emissions by vehicles used for landscape maintenance; lowering the cost of maintenance in part by reducing the use of chemicals and labor; and using native plants in 90% of the new plantings on campus by 2024. Meanwhile, a student group, People4Plants, organized a day of planting in April by Green Hall. The group's president, Angela Mo '23, a biology major, says People4Plants is focused on creating spaces that will become ecologically active. "The plants we put in our gardens will hopefully provide habitats for beneficial insects and increase biodiversity on campus, even on a small scale," Mo says. "We are also looking to plant rain gardens, which are a type of garden that is specifically designed to absorb water. We are hoping that by planting rain gardens across campus, it will limit the amount of mulch that sometimes muddies the paths on rainy days." An energy exam What do you get when you cross a class of accounting students with a class of computer science students? In the case of Bih-Horng Chiang 's and John DeGood's classes, you get a National Science Foundation-funded examination of the energy supply and demand on the TCNJ campus, including the college's vehicle fleet. Above: Members of People4Plants did a spring campus planting using native and noninvasive species, such as northern blue flag and blue cardinal flowers.

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