Merit Badge University Creates Learning Environment for Scouts and CNR Volunteers

hands-on fisheries excercise

Graduate student leads Scout in hands-on exercise to earn Fisheries & Wildlife Management merit badge.

Contributors: Aletta Davis and Christi Standley

It was a cold and windy day, rain threatened on the horizon, but about 150 hardy Boy Scouts were found roaming throughout NC State University’s campus and properties, learning and working hard to earn merit badges in science-based subjects. Held March 26 this year, NCSU Merit Badge University is a one-day event hosted by several colleges and departments for local Boy Scouts.

The College of Natural Resources provided the curriculum and resources for a great group of dedicated Boy Scouts to earn their choice of five badges: Fisheries & Wildlife Management, Environmental Science, Pulp & Paper, Forestry, and Soil & Water Conservation.  To offer this fabulous experience, numerous faculty, staff, and students (undergraduate and graduate) joined together to plan and lead the Scouts through a variety of requirements needed for each of these badges. For instance, fourteen NCSU faculty, staff and students, along with several Boy Scout volunteers, served as instructors and guides at Schenck Forest, the site of the Forestry and Soil & Water Conservation merit badge activities.

Goldfarb leads group

Forestry and Environmental Resources Department Head, Barry Goldfarb, gathers the Scouts before their next exercise.

Spending the day teaching the Boy Scouts about these fields of interest was rewarding for all involved, especially having the opportunity to observe intelligent, curious scouts who are full of energy and interested in learning new things.  Seeing Scouts who were ‘repeat attenders’ this year is a strong indication of the success of Merit Badge University.  Aletta Davis, graduate student and lab manager in the college, recalled her experience helping with this event over the past two years, saying, “I’m always amazed at the Scouts’ willingness to participate in hands-on learning exercises while working together to help each other earn these badges. I’ve learned a lot from working with the Boy Scouts and, I hope, in turn, they’ve learned a little bit about my field of interest, soils. ”

soil demonstration

Aletta Davis, center, leading the Scouts through a demonstration about soil properties.

A special thanks to Tiffany McLean, CNR Director of Enrollment Management, for organizing CNR’s contribution to NCSU Merit Badge University, as she did a fabulous job of planning and organizing this event in every detailed way, even including tracking down a freezer of frozen fish stomachs!

Tools and Technology Aid the North Carolina Coast

 RESULTS magazine cover - winter 2011The research of College of Natural Resources professors Dave Tilotta, Stacy Nelson and Tom Colson along with graduate students Tyler Strayhorn and Brett Harris are featured in “The North Carolina Coast,”  the Winter 2011 issue of  Results – the Research and Innovation Magazine at North Carolina State University.  

Here are two examples of how we’re improving the lives of the people, plants and animals who populate our coast. 

Tools Needed to Bounce Back after the Storm  

Coastal storms have raked North Carolina, with intense winds demolishing buildings and ripping apart infrastructure. They also have swamped the state, with torrential rains forcing residents to flee for higher ground and leaving homes uninhabitable.  NC State researchers are studying ways to design coastal communities—through planning and construction—to be more resilient in future storms.
Dr. Dave Tilotta (left) and Tyler Strayhorn, an M.S. candidate in Forest Biomaterials, use flood-simulation tanks to test building material resiliency to river water and sea water.

Dr. Dave Tilotta (left) and Tyler Strayhorn, an M.S. candidate in Forest Biomaterials, use flood-simulation tanks to test building material resiliency to river water and sea water.

                                                                                                                                     Dr. Dave Tilotta is trying to find ways to make building materials more storm-proof. An associate professor and extension specialist in the Department of Forest Biomaterials, Tilotta is NC State’s point man for the DHS’ Resilient Home Program. The effort came about after Hurricane Katrina, when officials realized there was no single place for homeowners whose houses had been damaged in a natural disaster to seek information.

Tilotta’s team worked with program members at Savannah River National Laboratory, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Clemson University to create YouTube videos and other means to disseminate information on issues like mold mitigation and ways to retrofit homes. They also developed performance-based guidelines to encourage construction of buildings to better withstand high winds. 

“The best way for a community to recover from a natural disaster is to get people back into their homes
as quickly as possible.”
 

The Resilient Home Program is now ramping up research efforts, such as determining how resistant building materials are to floodwaters. “FEMA provides guidance on when materials should be considered too damaged for use, but there’s no science behind them,” Tilotta says.  His team dunks flooring into specially built flood-simulation tanks in Hodges Laboratory that contain river water or saltwater. After soaking the boards for up to a couple of weeks and then drying them out, they put the materials through a battery of tests to see how well they meet performance standards like weight-bearing capacity.

Eventually, Tilotta says, they will test wall studs and other materials as well. “The best way for a community to recover from a natural disaster is to get people back into their homes as quickly as possible,” he says. “Our research and education efforts are designed with that goal in mind.”   

Eye in Sky Can See Underwater Greenery

Dr. Stacy Nelson and Brett Hartis, a Ph.D. candidate in Forestry and Environmental Resources, examine underwater vegetation in the Currituck Sound.

Dr. Stacy Nelson and Brett Hartis, a Ph.D. candidate in Forestry and Environmental Resources, examine underwater vegetation in the Currituck Sound.

 

Under a searing summer sun, an NC State research team takes a small boat out onto Currituck Sound and drops some lines in the water. This is no ordinary fishing expedition, however. The group is reeling in samples of plants growing in the sediment a few feet below the surface so they can correlate their findings with images snapped by a satellite soaring more than 275 miles over their heads. 

Determining the location and variety of vegetation submerged in a body of water has always been a labor-intensive process. It’s also one with the potential for inaccuracy, as researchers pull samples from various points and then extrapolate their findings over a wider area. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) asked Dr. Stacy Nelson, associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, to find an easier and more reliable way to inventory underwater plants.

Submerged vegetation often presents planning problems for NCDOT engineers on projects that cross water. They must either avoid areas teeming with plants because those spots often are also teeming with fish or mitigate the construction damage by replanting elsewhere.  “If you don’t have an accurate inventory of what’s there,” Nelson says, “you don’t know where to avoid and what to mitigate.” 

Nelson, who works in the College of Natural Resources’ (CNR) Center for Earth Observation, believes high-resolution satellite images can be used to pinpoint submerged vegetation. He says he had good results using satellite photos to map lakes in Michigan a few years back, and now he is tapping into more detailed photos from a commercial satellite called Quickbird to develop a mathematical model for predicting what plants are where underwater. The model also will include data on water quality and the “reflective signature” of various plants. 

Submerged vegetation often presents planning problems for NCDOT engineers
on projects that cross water.

Getting the signature for each species is where the boat trips on Currituck Sound come in. “Water either scatters or absorbs the reflective energy the satellite is trying to capture, so there’s little left to develop a signature,” Nelson says. Together with Dr. Tom Colson, a geographic information systems expert in CNR, and two graduate students, he had to conduct a manual inventory so they could match their findings to the Quickbird photos. They collected samples at 276 points over 270 square miles three times during the summer as vegetation changed, noting the global-positioning satellite coordinates of each point so they would sample the exact spots each time. “If we can use the model to preserve healthy plant communities,” Nelson says, “we can boost the underwater ecology along our coast.” 

Results: Research and Innovation at North Carolina State University is published three times yearly by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. 

Editor – Matthew Burns
Photography: Roger Winstead

Dr. Kanters Goes to Washington

Dr. Michael Kanters addresses the Congressional Hockey Caucus on March 10, 2011

"Organized sports have strayed from their core mission of providing healthy, safe, and character building recreation for our nation’s youth." - Dr Michael Kanters

Recently, NC State University Sport Management professor Michael Kanters travelled to Capitol Hill at the invitation of the National Hockey League  to brief a Congressional Committee about the importance of sports participation for youth and the disturbing trend in organized sports away from their core mission of providing healthy, safe and character-building recreation for our nation’s youth. 

According to Dr. Kanters, there is a well established correlation between sport participation and positive educational and social outcomes for youth- including higher grades, college completion and increased levels of confidence and self-esteem. 

Kanters and other sport and recreation professionals are concerned, however, about a cultural shift in the structure and delivery of youth sports in America- a shift that is moving us away from seeing sport as an environment for positive experiences to one which “professionalizes” youth sports – where talent rules, bigger is better, children are pressured to practice more frequently and specialize at an early age, as opposed to a child-centric inclusive approach that gives our youth positive life experiences, physical activity, and the skills for a lifetime of active living and productive citizenship.

Watch the Congressional Briefing Video
Read Dr. Kanters Remarks

Arbor Day Celebration Drew a Large Crowd and was Fun for All

learning how to care for plants

Triangle Chapter of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) donated native plants and held a plant adoption station for youth. SAF member Kelley McCarter explains how to plant and care for this young plant.

This year’s North Carolina Arbor Day Celebration was a tremendous success, and the State Farmers Market in Raleigh proved to be an ideal location for the event. The warm weather and festive mood created a wonderful backdrop for hundreds of adults and youth to interact with resource professionals, faculty, and students and learn about the importance of trees and forests and how they improve the quality of our lives.

See News 14 Carolina’s video coverage: “Arbor Day plants a seed for new careers”

Congratulations and thanks to all of the NC Arbor Day Celebration exhibitors, supporters and participants who made the event possible and such fun!

Many thanks to the following:

Seedling giveaway

During the five-hour free event, members of the Triangle and NC State Student Chapters of SAF distributed 1000 redbud seedlings and answered the public’s questions on a variety of forest-related topics.

Triangle Chapter of SAF
Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Forest History Society
NC Forestry Association
NC Division of Forest Resources
NC Division of Forest Resources – Urban & Community Forestry
City of Raleigh – Urban Forestry
NeighborWoods Program
NCSU College of Natural Resources – Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources

NCSU College of Natural Resources – Department of Forest Biomaterials
NCSU Extension Forestry
Gregory Poole Equipment Company
NC Prescribed Fire Council

Learn more at Celebrate North Carolina’s Arbor Day at the State Farmers Market and go.ncsu.edu/arborday2011

Study Shows Attendance At State Parks Grows, Even As Funding Decreases

NEWS RELEASE – For Immediate Release

America's State ParksA recent study from North Carolina State University shows that while the number of visits to state parks across the country has grown, fund support for park operations has been significantly reduced. The reduction in funding during a time of park growth endangers the more than $20 billion in economic impact that state parks have on the nation’s economy.

“Obviously the reduction in general-fund support for operations puts stress on America’s state-park systems,” says Dr. Yu-Fai Leung, NC State associate professor of recreation ecology, park planning and visitor management, and director of the study.

“This is a troubling trend since states rely heavily on outdoor recreation and tourism spending to fuel local economies. The public has high expectations of state parks and the facilities and programs offered. If the state parks don’t meet expectations, visitors will likely take their business elsewhere.”

Leung, alongside fellow NC State researcher Dr. Chris Siderelis, completed the Annual Information Exchange (AIX) report, which tabulates data on state park attendance and economic impact, for the National Association of State Park Directors.

State parks nationally are generating a nine-fold return on their annual operating investment during difficult economic times. Many private- and public-sector jobs depend on the vitality of public parks; placing them at risk only aggravates the economic stress on state economies, Leung says. Total operating expenditures for state parks from all sources add up to about $2.2 billion, the report asserts. State general funds represent about $810 million of that $2.2 billion.

State parks operated 1,257 new areas, or more than 23,800 acres, over the previous year. “What that means is they have more land, facilities and visitors at a time when budget cuts are in double digits,” Leung explains. “It is unlikely that any private-sector business would cut expenditures when visitation and economic impact are growing. The prudent business plan would be to have stable or increased funding during periods of growth to protect the increasing market share.”

The AIX report shows that visitation to America’s state parks has grown from about 727 million visits in 2009 to more than 740 million in 2010 – a 1.6 percent increase. During the same period, general-fund support for park operations was reduced by $114 million or about 12.3 percent. Day-use visitation to state parks increased by more than 17 million or 2.6 percent while overnight visits dropped from 64 to 60 million. “The price of gasoline and pressure on household budgets are likely reasons for the 5.3 percent reduction in overnight visits,” Leung says.

Researchers are currently conducting statistical analyses on the AIX data to identify patterns and trends about state park use and operations.

NC State’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management is part of the university’s College of Natural Resources.

AIX 2009-2010 Summary & Comparison ( DOC )  ( PDF )

For more information contact:
Yu-Fai Leung, Parks Recreation & Tourism Managment, 919.
Caroline Barnhill, News Services, 919.515.6251