There is only one building in the New Leonardtown community that boasts native plants in the small patches of grass surrounding it. But students in the university’s EcoHouse won’t be able to stay to watch them grow anymore.

EcoHouse, a living and learning program based in New Leonardtown building 247 that taught students about environmentally friendly living, will be temporarily shut down due to lack of interest. Most residents said they had already found alternative housing — many off-campus — but that they would miss EcoHouse’s sustainable community.

“EcoHouse was not able to attract the number of students necessary to justify funding at this time,” Wendy Whittemore, director of EcoHouse and associate director for the environmental science and policy program, wrote in an e-mail. “We hope this is temporary, so we are calling it ‘hibernation’ instead of an ‘ending.'”

Whittemore said most living and learning programs have at least 75 students annually. EcoHouse only had a total of about 63 students total over the past three years.

“New programs always take awhile to catch on. Consequently, recruitment takes a significant amount of time and energy,” Whittemore said. “We are very pleased with the educational outcome for the students who did participate.”

EcoHouse requires students to live time and energy,” Whittemore wrote. “We are very pleased with the educational outcome for the students who did participate.”

EcoHouse requires students to live for one year in New Leonardtown and practice sustainable living through activities such as saving power and planting a garden. The building itself is no more environmentally friendly than others in the community, but residents said they recycled and composted together and that they will miss the camaraderie of the program.

“I liked that we got to explore sustainability outside the classroom and live with others who are like-minded,” sophomore environmental science and policy major Dana Goetz said.

Goetz said she and other residents learned of the program’s fate at the end of last semester, so there was time to enter the housing lottery. Goetz added that she got into South Campus Commons, but other residents had to search off-campus for somewhere to live.

“Most everyone I know was able to find housing,” senior environmental science and policy major Lucas Kelly said. “But to my knowledge, it was pretty much all off-campus.”

EcoHouse is university-sponsored, so residents have access to the same resources as all on-campus students, Whittemore wrote.

The program required a class — ENSP 399W: Special Topics in Environmental Science and Policy: EcoHouse — in which students discussed sustainable living and listened to speakers on the topic. The class even took field trips. An upcoming trip is to the National Zoo.

“The only problem is you have to do a lot of extra work to live there,” Kelly said. “It’s actually a lot of work, but other than that it’s good living there.”

But despite extra assignments, EcoHouse students still lamented the loss of a program that brought them together with other students who share the same green values.

“It just kinda sucks because it’s a good experience,” said Jack Kleman, a sophomore environmental science and policy major. “But with the budget and funding problems, it seems unrealistic to keep [the program.]”

cetrone@umdbk.com