“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

-Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin is best known for his Theory of Evolution, which explains the changes species must make in order to adapt to their surroundings. In reality, the process of evolution takes millions of years, however, I can’t help but think I underwent a type of evolution in response to the changing world over the course of one semester. As previously mentioned, I had to adapt in order to have an enjoyable and productive experience on campus during the fall semester. Although it was difficult at times, I found ways to change my usual routine in order to ensure safety and retain some feeling of normalcy. Similar to the day-to-day changes I made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Charles Darwin also underwent personal evolutions during his research. The comparison between Charles Darwin’s field notes to the finished observations in The Voyage of the Beagle is indicative of this personal evolution. In Charles Darwin’s field notes, he seems to record everything he experiences and notices about the marine iguanas without paying significant attention to the actual wording. The field notes formed the base of the polished description of the marine iguanas in The Voyage of the Beagle. Similarly, during the time I spent journaling in the field, I wrote down every thought I had, even if it was only loosely based on the prompt at hand. The creation of this exhibit required me to revisit my field notes and begin to draw connections and conclusions from my many ideas that I had in the field.

My Journaling Location

My journaling spot was located in the middle of the hill heading down towards the Lowry Center (formerly known as the Kenyon Athletic Center) and behind Bushnell Residence Hall. I chose this spot because I was surprised to find such a serene location in the middle of a busy campus and I was interested in how the constant bustle of people walking through my journaling spot would affect its natural aspects. I had also heard that my journaling location was the site of a recent significant construction project that not only created the Benson Bowl (the field hockey and lacrosse field) but also greatly changed the landscape of the surrounding area as well.

Satelite Images of the Hill

I had not been on campus prior to or during the construction, so I had not realized how drastically the landscape had been altered until I read an article in the Kenyon Collegian from September 2018 that explained the college’s plan to reduce the original grade, or slope, of the hill from 22 degrees to somewhere between 8 and 14 degrees. To complete this goal, the construction team would relocate the dirt excavated during the construction of Kenyon’s new library and relocate it to the hill on where my journaling spot was. In addition to the physical reshaping of the landscape, new walkways were added in order to make the walk up the hill easier.

Diagrams of the Hill

In creating these new walkways, the construction workers had to remove 19 trees that would obstruct the new walkways in order to make the new walkways as streamlined as possible. A few of these trees were dying and had to be removed regardless of construction, but 15 of them had been planted by the College in the 5 years prior to construction. Interestingly, Kenyon has a policy where if a tree on campus needs to be taken down, the College will replant another tree on campus in its place. With the construction of the new hill, the College emphasized that they would plant 2 new trees for every 1 tree that had to be taken down as a result of the construction. Although I had not realized it at the time, my journaling location had been a completely reworked landscape and ecosystem with the addition of numerous new trees.

"One important problem is that there is usually an imperfect understanding of the nature of the original ecological communities of place or region. Ecology is a relatively recent science."

-"Difficulties of Ecological Restoration"

Kenyon’s decision to rearrange the landscape in favor of construction, as well as their decision to replant numerous trees to combat the disturbance in the landscape, bring the concepts of conservation and restoration into question. It is difficult to restore a landscape to its original state because it is impossible to determine what that original state was. When we restore a landscape, are we trying to make it the same as it was several billion years ago? If that is the case, we may have to reverse some tectonic movement and mountain building. Or, in the case of the Kenyon construction, do we want to restore a landscape after construction or some type of catastrophe? In that instance, it would be a lot easier to remember the makeup of a landscape before the change in order to restore it.

Cross Sections of the Hill

The goal of land restoration has a lot to do with timeline because, in theory, you can only restore a landscape to its original state as far back as the human record goes. Therefore, was the construction at my journaling location and the planting of new trees a part of the evolution of the landscape masked as an effort to restore the landscape? In the previously discussed instances of personal, physical, and intellectual evolution, there is a gray area between a naturally occurring change and an intentional shift. Although a change seems intentional, perhaps it was part of the overarching plan all along.