“Smell that?” my friend R.J. asks as we wade through a wetland near Comcast Center. “It’s methane produced by microbes in the mud.” I sniff the air and decide he probably smells the gas I just passed. Embarrassed, I say nothing and, instead, climb over a fallen beech tree while R.J. pauses to admire its remarkably smooth bark.
You’ve probably seen R.J. around the campus. With his long hair and penchant for wearing sports coats, he’s what I picture Jesus would look like if he were reborn as a tycoon in Panama. R.J. is one of the many refreshing characters I’ve met while living in the EcoHouse in Leonardtown.
On this chilly autumn morning, instead of sticking to my usual ritual of getting up precisely 12 minutes before my first class, dressing in four minutes and madly pedaling my bike to my first lecture of the day, I’m up two hours early for an impromptu ecology lesson.
Ever seen someone fly-fishing? You know the scene. Picture a guy in rubber overalls standing waist-deep in the cool waters of an idyllic mountain stream. R.J. and I are doing exactly that, except, instead of relaxing in crystal-clear glacial melt catching rainbow trout, we’re slogging through rust-orange muck surveying plant life.
“This, here, is New York ironweed,” R.J. says while gently holding the delicate petals of a flower. I’m half-listening to him and half-thinking about how it looks like purple cotton candy. As I begin sweetly relishing childhood memories, R.J. begins hacking the plant apart.
“Here we go,” he says as he shows me a cross section of the plant’s stem. “These holes here are aerenchyma tissue, used to get oxygen down to the roots.”
He moves quickly to another plant and asks, “What do you think this is?”
I search through the cobwebbed crevices of my brain for what little high school biology I remember and ponder aloud, “Um, a monocot?” Not a good enough answer apparently, as R.J. continues his tradition of decapitating our plant subjects and hands me a stem to inspect. I stare at it blankly.
“Here’s a hint: sedges have edges, rushes are round and grasses have leaves that go down to the ground.” Looking at it now, the stem is indeed a little boxy.
“Hm … a sedge?”
“Right you are, my good man.”
We trudge further through the marsh, and R.J. continues his lecture, rattling off terms such as “oxygen gradient,” “electron transport chain” and Phragmites australis. I remember everything in his lesson because, instead of merely staring at a chalkboard, I’m standing in the midst of what he’s talking about.
We near the end of our muddy adventure at a patch of black cherry trees. R.J. shows me how they are used to delineate wetland boundaries because they tolerate varying soil conditions. Again, I find myself half-listening to him and half-thinking about how much I’ve learned outside the classroom through these ad hoc lessons since joining the EcoHouse.
These lessons may be numbered, though, because EcoHouse members are an endangered species. The program is designed for upperclassmen preparing for careers related to ecology by learning from one another about the diverse range of environmental disciplines. Unlike other living-learning programs, EcoHouse hasn’t gotten permission from the Department of Resident Life to allow its seniors to remain in on-campus housing. They’ve suggested we start recruiting from the incoming freshman pool to sustain our population, but the program only works if its participants have advanced enough in their studies to teach each other about their respective fields.
We have budding wetland ecologists, aquatic entomologists, climate physicists, environmental engineers and political scientists who, collectively can assemble some of the pieces needed to understand the majestic complexities of our planet.
As we sit beside the marsh and peel off our muddy gear, R.J. tells me about how the exquisite wetland we just toured was almost bulldozed a few years ago to put up a building. Only through the diligence of concerned members of the university community was the administration persuaded to spare it.
I hope they’ll lend us a kind ear once more.
Benjamin Johnson is a senior physics major and the EcoHouse’s resident assistant. He can be reached at katsuo@umd.edu.
