MANSFIELD — Six high school students worked alongside UConn students and faculty in the July heat earlier this month, lifting pieces of wood to replace a bridge over the Fenton River in the 580-acre UConn Forest.
The students, dressed in T-shirts, pants, gloves and safely helmets, were responsible for replacing a narrow 12-by-3-foot bridge that had been there for at least 10 years.
The six were among a diverse group of 24 high school students from across Connecticut who participated in UConn’s Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA), which aims to educate high school students about the environment and how they can improve it.
Campers first spent a week in the classroom at UConn working on team-building and fieldwork taught by UConn graduate students and faculty from the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and environmental professionals.
“I live in an urban city and I learned [during the week’s activities] that there are different ways that my community damages the environment. I notice these things now,” said Tianna Felder, a NRCA student and sophomore at Crosby High School in Waterbury
The students had a taste of the college lifestyle, living in dorms and eating in the student union during their stay on campus for the first part of the program.
“Very little of the time was actually spent in the classrooms; most of it was outdoors with hands-on activities learning the techniques that we use to sample different species or study different aspects of the environment,” Laura Cisneros, the program coordinator and extension educator, said.
After a week in class, students split into teams of six to complete four community projects on UConn’s campus led by UConn faculty.
The students who worked on the bridge saw how a tree is properly chopped down and took turns milling the wood. The UConn forest crew milled a majority of the wood and did most of the carpentry work and material assembling.
Three white oak trees and a black locust tree were chopped down from an area in the UConn forest. Some of trees cut were dead and others were 80 to 100 years old.
“We have wood right here and it is perfectly good,” Tom Worthley, a forestry professor and extension educator said. “It is more work and more planning, but you get the opportunity to use what’s right here.”
“The bridge we had there was pretty poor. I have been wanting to put a bridge there that was much more substantial,” Worthley said. “The idea of having the [new] bridge across the brook improves the protection of the aquatic resource.”
Up to 20 people pass this area of the trail each day and when the old bridge was in place, some of these walkers, bikers, horseback riders, and tractor drivers ignored the rickety narrow bridge and tromped through the stream bed. The boots and tires that would go through the stream caused sedimentation, erosion and a disturbance to the reptiles, amphibians and water bugs that live in the brook.
The new two-truss bridge can hold about a ton and a half and is wide enough for walkers, bikers, tractors and other vehicles, such as ATVs, to cross.
The old bridge sat on the surface of the small stream bed and did not allow the water to flow through efficiently when there was a heavy flow of water. The new bridge is raised at least 30 inches from the surface of the stream bed when the stream flows at a normal pace, which allows for plenty of space for the water to flow at high levels and continue its role as a feeder system.
“If you’re going to put some effort into something, I like to get multiple educational objectives accomplished from it,” Worthley said. “It’s been educational for the guys that work for me, it’s been educational for other members of the staff and it’s also been educational for the students participating in NRCA.”
The other projects completed by the other teams dealt with wildlife, soils and water quality and green infrastructure.
Before the first part of the program, Cisneros met with each student to discuss their interests and develop a project idea to complete when they return to their own communities.
NRCA pairs students with the most appropriate community partner or conservation leader in their communities after the week-long experience to work on creative projects over seven months.
In March, the NRCA participants report back to the program at the Connecticut Conference on Natural Resources with a poster presentation sharing the research completed in their communities. Over 300 people attend the professional conference each year.
NRCA was created in 2012 by John Volin, the head professor of the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at UConn. Volin’s vision was to get high school students excited about the environment and give them an opportunity to do hands-on activities in the field of natural resources.
At the end of the week, the student groups showcased their PowerPoint presentations at a closing ceremony in front of their family and friends.
“It was good to do something out of my comfort zone,” Felder said. “It was great making friends from different places in Connecticut and being able to make so many new connections.”
Garafano said giving high school students new experiences is a goal of the program. “It’s not every day a kid gets to go home and say they built a bridge and in an environmentally friendly way,” he said.
For more information about the Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA), go to: http://nrca.uconn.edu/
