Student Scientists Map Biodiversity Across Campus

Walk through our campus on any given day, and you will hear the rustle of leaves, the chatter of songbirds, and maybe even the sudden splash of a frog into the adjacent pond. But just how diverse is the campus ecosystem?

Towards the end of second semester, our Biology students put on their researcher hats to conduct a comprehensive, field-based campus biodiversity study. By observing, cataloging, and analyzing local species across five key ecological categories (trees, squirrels, birds, wildflowers, and frogs), the student researchers gathered data on the richness and balance of the campus environment.

The study evaluated two major ecological metrics across different categories: richness (the total number of different species present) and evenness (how evenly individual organisms are distributed among those species).

This hands-on project not only gave students practical experience in ecological field methods, but it also provided a data-driven snapshot of the healthy, dynamic ecosystem thriving right outside the classroom doors.