With our continued efforts to expand the natural green space on our campus, we've planted hundreds of native wildflower seeds in several unique locations. 

"You've got this entire base of the food chain reliant on these intact and healthy remote [wildflower] ecosystems."

- Gregg Treinish, National Geographic Explorer

"Guerrilla" Style Planting

Our "Guerrilla" style planting means new wildflower patches show up on campus all the time! The EAT rolls out ad hoc, selecting patches of unused or barren land across campus and cooperating with facilities to plant on it! We have three main goals in doing this.

Connecting Green Spaces

A lot of our campus space is dedicated to classrooms, pathways, and sprawling fields! This makes greenspace projects super important, creating important pathways for pollinators and local wildlife to traverse and restoring the natural ecosystems that once existed on this land. Additionally, many of our larger greenspaces on campus, such as the Pollinator Garden, Forest (?), Fir Grove, and Tiny Forest are all separated by often unused and completely cleared dirt patches, leaving our beautiful campus feeling empty and brown in many places. This initiative is not only great for the local wildlife, but it looks amazing as well!

Protecting Our Campus

Catlin Gabel sits on over 67 acres of land, and maintaining it requires a lot of work from our facilities team. As a show of love and respect for the people working so hard to keep our campus up and running, we want to make their work as easy as possible, and Wildflower planting just so happens to be a great start! As we saw during the 2024 ice storm, Catlin is vulnerable to large amounts of snow, ice, and heavy winds. Over 100 (?) trees were toppled over or deemed unsafe in its aftermath. The lack of smaller plants and shrubs means a lack of deep interconnected root systems. These root systems not only do well to trap carbon, but they can also help reduce the likelihood of landslides and firm up the soil, preventing erosion and falling trees.

Building Community

What could be more fun than getting covered in dirt and mud with your friends, as you toss seeds into the air and drive steaks into the ground? For us the answer is obvious: nothing! By inviting students of different backgrounds and grades to participate, our wildflower planting sessions are fun-filled events where students can hang out with friends, and maybe even make new ones!