Environmental Science majors enrolled in Ecology have been exploring wetlands, starting with their negative depiction in culture and the history of wetland destruction in favor of other land use. Cadets learned about the benefits that healthy wetland ecosystems including habitat, recreation, food provisioning, storm surge storage capacity and an ability to improve water quality, and that a recognition of these benefits led to the creation of a global legal framework to conserve wetlands and informed the current U.S. policy of “no net loss.” They spent several lessons learning about each of the three principal components of wetlands: flooding or inundation for part of the growing season, the formation of hydric soils under anoxic conditions, and plant communities composed of flood-tolerant species called hydrophytes.
Their study of wetlands culminated in field research at a fen near Wilkins Pond where they collected data for their term project. During their field work, cadets examined soils, performed analyses on water samples, measured biodiversity and identified the most abundant species in the area and a nearby upland site. Cadets will work in groups to compare data collected at Wilkins Pond with data they will collect at human-altered wetlands elsewhere on West Point. They will write a report in the form of a scientific journal article and create a poster to present their research in class. The research methods learned provide the cadets who major in Environmental Science with the tools to evaluate ecological change and disturbance, and to present their findings to an audience.