This week we continued our work with Shawn Severance, a naturalist from County Farm Park. One thing the students love about working with Shawn is her use of concrete artifacts and models she brings with her. We met Shawn at the perennial gardens of CFP, recapping the two time periods of her last visit (the Devonian and Glacial periods) while looking at wooly mammoth molars (in comparison to a deer’s jaw), actual pieces of wooly mammoth tusk, sabertooth tiger models, and more.
We then shifted to thinking about the next two major shifts in the history of this land: pre- and post-European settlement. The students viewed survey maps documenting the vegetation of the area in 1800. At this point, the area was dense with Oak-Hickory and Beech-Maple Forests. Though indigenous people were on the land, it remained vibrant with life. As Europeans began to dominate the land, much of these original forests were cut down for industry (such as logging) and agriculture. The farmer who once possessed the land that we now know as County Farm Park left only a small chunk of the original Oak forest (https://aadl.org/node/266573). Shawn laid the current trail map of CFP onto aerial photos of the property from 1949 and we hiked the trails, stopping to find memories/clues of what the land once was in the current landscape. As we made our way through County Farm Park, we took note of the different feelings and sights of the recovering farmland, now dense with invasive species like Buckthorn and Honeysuckle, and the ancient forest. We paused on various trails as Shawn spotted out huge tree stumps from the ancient forest, cut in half and dead. Shawn drew the students’ attention to the paradox of dying trees; they are the fertile ground for new life to grow. Students loved looking for signs of new life in the dead trees we found along the way. We also watched a documentary titled Intelligent Trees. This documentary focuses on the science behind the “language of trees”. More specifically, it looks at how trees use an underground network of mycelium to communicate with other trees. We went on another hike around County Farm looking for signs of this. Students loved thinking about how the trees were talking to each other just below our feet.
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