By Taylor Choquette, intern, WSU ’18
WESTFIELD – During the fall 2017 semester, in a Senior Seminar, four Environmental Science majors at Westfield State University conducted a capstone project to benefit the Westfield community.
The Friends of Pine Hill Cemetery contacted the Environmental Science Department at WSU. “They want to preserve trees, but identify those with issues,” Dr. Michael Vorwerk explained the project that the organization hoped students would help with.
The students, Ryan Malakie, Patrick Rieker, Lauren Guertin and Stephanie Ladas, were all interested in trees, preservation and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and started the project by meeting with Dale Dickinson and Joan Corel from Pine Hill Cemetery.
“I chose the topic because I felt much more drawn to doing real work and delivering a product that would directly contribute to solving a problem in our community,” Malakie explained why he chose the Pine Hill Cemetery project to be his capstone.
The problem the cemetery needed help with was the trees in the cemetery. Sometimes, to make new grave sites, they have to cut the roots of trees to make room, and this can negatively affect the health of the trees. The students explained that families often request trees to be planted at the graves to honor their loved ones, so they also needed to conduct research on trees with smaller root systems.
The group used a GIS unit, diameter tape and a laser rangefinder to measure, rate the health of and map of 100 trees located in the cemetery. The Pine Hill tree map would help students in the Senior Seminar gain GIS experience. “It was useful in furthering our GPS skills, and I hope to get into GIS work,” said Rieker on his involvement in the project.
Their project was carried out over the course of the fall semester. Having a map which color coded the trees in the fields with a ranking of, needs immediate attention to healthy, helped the cemetery know where to start with possible tree removal.
“I had interned for the Trustees of Reservations during the summer of 2017,” Ladas said as she explained her decision to join the project. “Identifying trees has always remained fascinating to me. Even more so, it was a pleasure to apply this knowledge to help the community.”
The students presented their finished map at the Fall Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity at WSU. The four were also invited to present their findings and project at a Friends of Pine Hill Cemetery monthly meeting in March.
