For those floraphiles out there who are also cinephiles, this
post is for you.
Georgia Tech Students Study Streamside Urban Restoration
The Atlanta Botanical Garden recently played host to a mini-film festival. The filmmakers were Georgia Tech students enrolled in Dr. Cara Gormally’s Biology 1511 laboratory. The films capped a semester-long project investigating the biological effects of the Urban Habitat Restoration Project[1] at Mason Mill Park, part of an initiative to remove invasive species and restore native habitats in public parks and other areas in metro-Atlanta. The class was divided into three groups tasked with generating a research question and a laboratory experiment designed to investigate it. The students then wrote up their findings. Finally, each group made a short educational film explaining a couple of concepts central to their research. The films had to be narrative and were graded on their educational and entertainment values.
A number of people with a special interest in urban habitat
restoration attended the screening: David
Butler, Dekalb County Greenspace Environmental Manager; Sally Sears, Executive
Director of the South Fork Conservancy; and Dennis Krusac, Endangered Species
Specialist at USDA Forest Service and Director of the Greater Atlanta
Pollinator Partnership (GAPP). Jenny
Cruse-Sanders, Director of Conservation and Research at the Atlanta Botanial
Garden introduced the films. Marc Merlin,
Director of the Atlanta Science Tavern, was also present.
The English ivy (Hedera
helix) at Mason Mill made a strong impression on these
students, and, according to Dr. Gormally, most were unaware that it is an invasive plant. Whether due to its ability to
outcompete every other species or simply its dark, leafy charisma all three groups chose to profile English ivy.
Without further ado, here are the films.
Biology Nightly
Filmmakers/Authors: Elizabeth Burns, Tyler Clenney, Angela Como,
Seth Dubin, Alex Huhman, JJ Netter, Kathryn Martin, Graham Sweeney
Paper title: The effect of the invasive species, Hedera helix, versus the native species,
Vitis rotundifolia, on soil microbial
communities
Research question: Do invasive plants affect the microbial
communities in their root zones? If so,
does this have anything to do with their success as a competitor?
Floraphile review: This newscast format features some
professional-looking graphics and person-on-the-street interviews from the
Georgia Tech campus. What makes the
former teacher in me want to stand up and cheer is that these students listened
to the input from the audience and revised their film. In this final version they define their
terms, include material about how you can rid yourself of invasive species and
suggest plants to use instead of English ivy.
Audience
questions/comments: The students
found more species of bacteria present in English ivy’s rhizosphere, and Dr.
Jenny Cruse-Sanders encouraged the students to identify the bacteria.
Bio Minute News
Filmmakers/Authors: Laura Boyle, Meredith Christianson, Jessica
Huynh, Drake Lee-Patterson, Diane Lin, Bonnie Rowland, Emily Slater
Paper title: The
Effects of Restoration on the Diversity of Species Present in the Soil Seed
Bank at Mason Mill Park
Research question: Does the seed bank (natural storage of seeds,
often dormant, within the soil of most ecosystems) of a restored area have a
greater diversity of seeds than that of an unrestored area? To assess the success
of the restoration of native species in Mason Mill Park and understand the
effect of invasive species on soil seed banks, this group examined the seed
abundance and diversity of the seed banks within three different plots.
Floraphile review: With this film we have a blending of
genres: newscast + horror film. A monster, English ivy, is on the loose and
attacking native plants: shading them out, taking their nutrients, and choking
them in vines. A very spirited performance of “English ivy”
provides an excellent overview of how this invasive species displaces native
species. The revised version of the film
is more informative and makes a wise substitute of the Southeast’s super
invader, Kudzu, for the California scourge, ice plant.
Audience
questions/comments: Dennis Krusac of the US Forest
Service urged to the students to germinate the seeds they collected so that
they can identify the plant species and learn what percentage of the seeds are
still viable after years spent in the shade of English ivy and other invasives.
Felix, Killer of Hedera helix
Filmmakers/Authors: Katie Fiedler, Sarah Gould, Chris Harwell,
Meera Kuntawala, Riz Rafi, Kyle Sexton, Casey Smith, Mary Ann Thaliath, Neha
Zaer
Paper Title: Functional Traits of Hedera helix compared to Vitis
rotundifolia and Smilax rotundifolia
Research question:
Why is English ivy such a good competitor?
This group compared Hedera helix
leaves with those of two native species, muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) and roundleaf greenbrier (Smilax rotundifolia).
They found that ivy has larger leaves, covers more ground, has a greater
biomass and the leaves themselves have a higher nitrogen content than the two
native species.
Floraphile's review: Felix,
Killer of Hedera helix is a great
spoof of Dexter, the TV show about a
serial killer who preys on serial killers.
It probably got the biggest laughs.
Kudos to the filmmakers for working factual information into the
dialogue, and to Meera Kuntawala for her megalomaniacal "English
Ivy."
Audience
questions/comments: Do you think
people would quit planting English ivy if they knew what a scourge it is? How
do you get rid of it? What should you plant instead? What can serve as replacement for this
seemingly maintenance-free groundcover?
Students Embrace Native Aesthetic
DISCUSSION
Student comments: The students said repeatedly that they
appreciated doing a “real” lab rather than following a set of instructions
toward a known outcome. They also felt
that devising their own research question, from a real-world situation like the
Mason Mill Park restoration, gave them more investment in their research. While working in a large group was sometimes
challenging, finding times when they all could meet, for instance, the students
thought the group project instilled the idea that science is collaboration, not
a lone scientist gazing into a microscope.
A number of students were keen to remove English ivy from their
campus. Its omnipresence made it
possible for students to film on campus, but it also got them thinking about
the landscaping choices in their immediate surroundings.
Final remarks: You learn just how well you know a thing when you are asked to teach it to someone else. Of course, it’s not just how well you know a subject, but whether you are able to convey that knowledge to a particular audience. You must internalize the perspective of your audience: What do they know? What knowledge and conceptual storehouse can I draw upon? How can I draw on this storehouse to best convey a new set of ideas?
An analogy that two of the films used was English Ivy as
alien monster. In this context I think
the analogy is apt. First, it’s quite a
familiar narrative: From 1950s monster movies to episodes of Fringe, stronger, faster, smarter
aliens come from outer space or another dimension to take over the world. Second, English ivy is a species alien to
this continent, and it really does compete like mad, engulfing native habitat
and converting a varied landscape into a uniform sea of ivy, even bringing down
trees in its wake. Like “English Ivy”
says in Felix, Killer of Hedera Helix,
“I’m just better than all of them!”—better at ecological domination, that is.
So, for a teaching tool, the film was a great
assignment. It reinforced newly acquired
knowledge and taught the students how to convey specialized knowledge to a
general audience. The hoped-for happy
result is that the students will become scientists who can talk intelligibly
about their work with regular folk.
[1]
Urban Habitat Restoration Project partners:
The Atlanta Botanical Garden Inc., Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance,
DeKalb County Natural Resource Management Office, Atlanta Audubon Society,
Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, National Wildlife Federation,
Butterfly Conservation Initiative and Georgia Public Broadcasting. Funding sources: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation/Georgia Power (Southern Company) provide funding through their
Five Star Grant program.
