�� - U.S. Virgin Islands

Exploring the Marine and Terrestrial Biodiversity of the US Virgin Islands - Winter Break

nicolerh — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 20:17:23 +0000

Coming Soon

U.S. Virgin Islands

Program Director(s):

2 credits of Globe 4960B (Spring 2025)

Located in the Caribbean Sea, St. John, an island in the US Virgin Islands, is rich in biodiversity, including several native and endemic plant and animal species. Characterized by a sub-tropical climate, St. John’s marine and seashore ecosystems boast beautiful coral reefs that are home to more than 40 species of coral; seagrass beds where 3 of the 7 species of sea turtles (green, hawksbill, leatherback) can be seen; and mangrove forests home to diverse assemblages of sponges, crabs, fish, and lobsters. The terrestrial ecosystems and their native and endemic species on St. John are just as impressive – on an island a little smaller than the city of Ames, there are over 400 species of trees. The majority of these unique marine and terrestrial ecosystems on St. John are protected by the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park, which occupies approximately 66% of the island.

On this 10-day travel course, students will participate in hands-on learning experiences (e.g., snorkeling, hiking, restoration projects) in the diverse ecosystems of the US Virgin Islands. Students will experience the incredible biodiversity of the US Virgin Islands, learn about major challenges to ecosystem and biodiversity conservation and management, and participate in efforts to address those challenges in the US Virgin Islands. While in St. John, students will meet and engage with local stakeholders, including the University of the Virgin Islands, National Park Service, environmental non-governmental organizations, and local community members.

Pre-departure orientation in the fall before travel, followed by a half-semester course during spring 2025 semester.

Upcoming Informational Session:

Wednesday, September 11, 2024 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Location: 333 Science 2

Wednesday, January 7, 2026 to Saturday, January 17, 2026

Department:

Global Resource Systems

Type of Travel:

Travel Course

Application Deadline:

Monday, September 15, 2025

Semester:

Spring

Learn More!

Year:

2025

Semester-long service learning experience in U.S. Virgin Islands

nicolerh — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 14:05:53 +0000

Three undergraduate students – Madison Lenaerts, senior in global resource systems; Maclane Murrell, junior in nutritional science; and Sophia Parker, junior in global resource systems – spent the spring semester on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, participating in the EARTH Program.

The program provides Iowa State University students with many hands-on and service-learning opportunities. They can either spend a summer on the island or take part in a semester-long experience working, living and helping in the community.

“Someone in my global resource systems class had done a semester abroad before and was really excited about her experience,” Lenaerts said. “This seemed like a great way to see the world and get a class requirement done at the same time.”

“I wanted to learn more about agriculture and food systems, and I really liked the idea of service learning,” Murrell added. “So, when I saw the EARTH opportunity, I decided it would be the perfect fit for me.”

The students’ experience began last January with attending a dedication ceremony for the Fork in the Road Station, a residential facility operated by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Dana Robes, an Iowa State dairy science alumnus, and his wife, Martha, gifted the facility to the university, ensuring it is available for participants in the EARTH Program for many years to come.

Each student was assigned an individual project to work on throughout the semester, which would benefit the island in some way and help the students learn.

Experimenting with mangrove protection methods

Madison Lenaerts firmly presses the soil down around a newly-planted mangrove tree. Among the many activities the students took part in, they all got to plant mangrove trees and other shoreline plants to help restore native vegetation on the island.

Lenaerts’ project focused on the island's wildlife — working on the northeast shoreline of St. John to create a natural barrier and prevent the island’s deer population from eating the immature mangroves.

Her project was broken down into three trials: a group with no fencing, a group with fencing, and a group with natural fencing made from trees and brush planted around the mangroves. Lenaerts didn’t have as much success as she hoped for but said that even with failure comes an opportunity for learning.

“Even though most of the mangroves protected by the natural fencing were affected by the deer, three were left alone,” Lenaerts said. “There is a reason for that, and that creates a whole new research question. It’s exciting.”

Improving nutrition via gardening

Murrell was involved with the gardens at the Gifft Hill School and created an educational poster about the produce raised and healthful eating.

“The kids were great, and the staff members were so positive. Every day, classes would help in the garden, which was integrated into the school’s food program. It was easy to see that our work was contributing to the food available for families where many incomes are low and so much of the food is imported.”

Educating islanders about water quality

Parker’s project involved creating communication pieces for Coral Bay’s comprehensive watershed plan. She took a very dense and long plan and paired it down into a more digestible format for islanders.

She also designed flyers to educate residents about the importance of improving the community’s limited water supply. These flyers communicated:

how to dispose of hazardous waste and trash properly so it does not contaminate the water supply;
the importance of planting natural vegetation; and
how to install UV filters for cleaner water.

“It really helped me find a passion for water quality,” Parker said.

Group effort to restore ecosystem

The students joined forces to work on a group project that involved planting mangrove trees and shoreline plants to restore native vegetation and rebuild the island’s ecosystem damaged during hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017. Funding for this restoration project came from National Park Service Restoration Grants.

In total, the students planted 843 mangrove trees and other native species. They also participated in three educational events to teach high school students about the plants.

“It was really fulfilling to take care of the plants in the greenhouse, then take some of the more mature plants and transplant them in the forest,” Parker said.

Murrell especially liked working with the tropical spider lilies, indigo and giant philodendrons with their big, broad leaves.

“Every day, we could be working with hundreds of plants in various stages,” he said. “We were often climbing down into steep ravines to revegetate areas that had been damaged during the hurricanes. It was rewarding and really interesting to be close to those micro-ecosystems, where semi-annual fish and amphibian species live in puddles in the forests.”

Takeaways from the experience

As a result of her experience on the island, Parker has added a watershed management class to her four-year plan and is considering attending graduate school.

“It was fun to apply the things I have been learning in my global resource systems classes and learn additional things I would not have just by reading a textbook,” she said.

This trip to St. John was Lenaerts’ first research experience outside of structured lab classes. She hopes to bring what she learned with her as she continues to expand her field experience.

“It’s cool to have this experience outside of a classroom and be able to put forward a research question and hypotheses and objectives, and then just go for it,” Lenaerts said.

Murrell said he was inspired by EARTH Program educators, including Louis Hilgemann, assistant teaching professor of horticulture, and Gail Nonnecke, Morrill Professor of horticulture, who encouraged his recent decision to add a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language to his college resume.

“After this, I imagine that international work, including in China, is likely to be a big part of my future,” Murrell said.

_{Original by Whitney Baxter, Madelyn Ostendorf, Ann Y. Robinson posted https://www.cals.iastate.edu/features/2023/semester-long-service-learnin....}

Tags:

semester-long

U.S. Virgin Islands

Spring 2023 Semester

Author(s):

Whitney Baxter

Madelyn Ostendorf

Ann Y. Robinson

Gaining global experience to tackle hunger

nicolerh — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 17:40:14 +0000

From a young age, Stefany Naranjo knew she wanted to play an active part in the fight against hunger.

This past summer, she tackled that lofty goal through an internship in the U.S. Virgin Islands with Iowa State University’s EARTH Program.

Naranjo is a senior in global resource systems and agricultural and life sciences education at Iowa State with an option in agriculture communications.

Her internship included creating and maintaining community gardens and helping churches feed the hungry. She was also involved in a long-term National Park Service project to restore shoreline plants impacted by hurricanes. Along with helping propagate mandrakes and other hardy native species that help shelter the island’s human and wildlife inhabitants, she created lesson plans to teach island youth about the plants and their benefits.

She first became aware of serious problems with food insecurity when she was in high school in Belmond, Iowa. She started a community food drive, then she had the chance to attend the Iowa Youth Institute and later served as a group leader for the World Food Prize.

These experiences “laid the foundation for my career going forward,” says Naranjo.

Ultimately, she sees herself working in underserved communities through urban agriculture, addressing issues such as food deserts.

Naranjo was recently selected to receive an Agricultural Communications Leadership Scholarship at Iowa State, which made it possible to accept the internship on St. John’s Island. The scholarship, established by Sorrel Brown, the first woman field agronomist hired by Iowa State University Extension, provides funding so students can “choose an internship based on the quality of the experience, not the size of the paycheck.”

“This scholarship was created for outstanding, service-oriented students like Naranjo,” says Howard Tyler, assistant dean for student services in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“It has been a true joy to watch Stefany develop during her time at Iowa State,” Tyler says. “She entered our college as a first-generation transfer student in fall 2019, and despite the pandemic, the shift to remote learning and family financial challenges, she has thrived and continued to excel academically. Stefany has overcome every obstacle life has thrown at her, and is always an amazingly positive person.”

Naranjo loved her time on the island and the chance to directly impact people’s lives.

“Being there made me even more appreciative of how well things work in the United States and our easy access to basic necessities,” she says. “I’m so grateful for the Sorrel Brown scholarship and other donors and ISU faculty and staff who support students in so many ways. I wouldn’t be here without them.”

By: Ann Y. Robinson

^{Original story, https://stories.cals.iastate.edu/2021/10/gaining-global-experience-to-ta...}

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Gaining global experience to tackle hunger

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Service-learning on campus and beyond

nicolerh — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 17:21:10 +0000

Finding ways to grow local fruits and vegetables sustainably. Teaching children about agriculture, culinary science, natural resources and more. Learning to collect data to determine animal population numbers in certain locations. These are just a few examples of the many service-learning opportunities in which Iowa State University students take part at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ three satellite campuses. The activities allow students to take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to real-world situations, all while helping others.

ISU EARTH Program, ISU-Uganda Program

The ISU EARTH Program and ISU-Uganda Program are similar in that students travel to these locations to participate in summer or semester-long programs. Faculty members also take students to these destinations for week-long trips during term breaks in the spring and fall semesters.

The ISU EARTH Program was established in 2010 in the U.S. Virgin Islands with the goal of offering Iowa State students service-learning opportunities, all while helping island residents improve their lives through sustainable agriculture practices. More than 75 students have taken part in the program since it began.

While on the island of St. John, Iowa State students assist with community engagement projects to increase their knowledge base and benefit the local area. These projects include establishing school and community gardens to supply fruits and vegetables for feeding programs; helping teachers create educational programs about agriculture, natural resources and environmental topics; and collecting food waste to compost and improve the soil structure.

“For our students to model the impact of agriculture and how it leads to better nutrition and health is inspiring for members of the community that have limited experience with agriculture,” says Shelley Taylor, director of CALS Global Programs.

In Uganda, students and faculty from Iowa State and Makerere University, Kampala, partner to create bi-national, educational, school garden programs in rural Kamuli district.

Since the program began in 2006, 147 Iowa State students have traveled to the country to team up with 168 Ugandan students to take part in service-learning opportunities. Those include developing school gardens that serve as both outdoor learning laboratories and contribute nutrition to lunches served at the schools, working with local youth to develop entrepreneurship projects as enterprises and assisting smallholder farmers with their crop and livestock farming.

“University students need to have a chance to learn about resource systems in other cultures and locations,” says Gail Nonnecke, Morrill Professor and Global Professor in Global Resource Systems. “It’s rewarding to see their personal growth and transformation as they contribute to development projects that can help to solve complex problems of our world.”

By: Whitney Baxter

^{Original story posted, https://stories.cals.iastate.edu/2021/10/service-learning-on-campus-and-...}

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Service-learning on campus and beyond

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