Ithaca College Natural Lands (ICNL)

Educational Workshops & Guided Nature Walks

Volunteer Stewards Program

The ICNL committee is charged with managing and protecting the college's more than 500 acres of natural areas. I have been head intern of the committee for three years now, and have had an intimate role in the expansion of our programs and progress of our mission on campus. Our mission is to maintain the educational value and ecosystem services of these lands, to support co-curricular activities, and to guide compatible economic and recreational development.

The Volunteer Stewards Program enlists students, faculty, staff, and community members in the continued observance and maintenance of our Natural Lands.

As part of my internship with the Ithaca College Natural Lands Committee, I plan and lead educational workshops, respond to the volunteer’s monthly reports, and catalogue and respond to the information collected in their reports.

We run a wide variety of educational workshops for a wide variety of people. Our past workshops have focused anywhere from: bird identification, medicinal and edible plant identification, winter and fall tree identification, forestry exercises, wetland tours, and leave no trace principles.

I attended a Leave No Trace Educator's course in the Adirondacks three summers ago and have since lead numerous Leave No Trace awareness workshops for our stewards and campus community. I love designing these workshops and coming up with fun and engaging activities to connect students with the outdoors in a responsible way.

Until recently, the ICNL committee had no written, formal plan or bylaws for how to manage the college's natural areas.

As part of a class, I carried out a case-study on local land use practices by visiting various local preserves and talking with their managers. We gathered this information, then brought it back to apply to the college's natural areas. As a group, we wrote the first draft of the "Management Proposal"

When the class ended, I carried on adding to and editing the document. After more than a year of work, I presented the document to the ICNL committee, where it was voted on and accepted as the official Ithaca College Natural Lands Management Plan.

In my time as intern, I have created a wide variety of educational materials showcasing the natural lands, from brochures, posters, websites, social media pages, and advertisement fliers.

I have a particularly strong interest in mapping and GIS work. I love collecting GPS data in the field and bringing it back to the computer to turn into a beautiful product. Click on the image above to see an example of an education map that I created, which has been printed in the form of brochures and posters.

First-Authored ICNL Management Plan

Mapping and GPS