So the CEER is an 87-acre property that's located right next to campus. I think the statement that we make is that we are invested in sustainability. All of the pieces add up to a commitment to making our campus and our region more environmentally engaged.

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People have to understand it's not a small thing. It's a large installation. In fact, when it was put in, it was the largest solar installation in higher education in Pennsylvania. The site itself is 14 acres within the fence line. It's about 12,000 solar -- individual solar panels. It was described by the engineers who actually came out and did the original survey as there, "There couldn't be a better location to put a ground-based solar array."

The two main reasons was demonstrating the university's support to a sustainable future, and also being good stewards of our financial resources. We have to control the weeds on the site, especially if they start to grow to the point where they're blocking sunlight, then it's defeating the purpose.

First thing I found out there are multiple types of sheep. I didn't realize that. There's mole sheep and hair sheep. We have hair sheep. They've been up there, what two full seasons now and they're doing the job they're, quote, unquote, paid to do so.

Especially in this part of the country, in the eastern United States, where we've had pretty intensive agriculture for over 200 years, we often do our best to get the most out of the land, which means running fields right next to a stream -- pushing it up as close as we can. Those root systems the trees have pull the sediment in place. They hold the dirt in place. And when you don't have that there any more high flow events, whenever there's a flood, that energy, just washes the bank downstream.

Live stakes are a really great restoration technique, a lot of riparian or wetland tree species, you can do what's called "propagate vegetatively." So you can take a cutting, you can kind of stem off of them, shove it in the ground, and it'll start to grow roots.

Not everyone at SU comes to SU because they want to be a wildlife conservation biologists, or because they want to go on and be a professor and teach ecology somewhere. We have the equipment and the know how to help students learn what they get excited about to do what they get excited about. We can give students a specialized experience that meets their interests or helps them figure out what their interests are.

So the Freshwater Research Institute is a Freshwater Research Lab designed for research with our undergraduate students. We do outside fieldwork and research with a variety of nonprofits, with a variety of governmental agencies, and with other universities. Our students pick samples according to the DEP protocol. And that's because we want the data to be transferable to the state level.

There's been several times where we've collected samples, those samples have then been identified, and those samples are then looked at by the EP for stream increased classification, or there was a spill and they wanted to know what was in that beforehand. That's a way that the students are doing the science but also having a public policy aspect to it and aspects of working towards the conservation of species directly. So I think that's one of the more unique aspects of what we do at the FRI.

Part of the reason that we organize the beekeeping club is to raise awareness of honeybees, and other pollinators and the challenges that they face. We also wanted to give students a chance to learn about beehive dynamics and communication and lifecycle. We try and have short talks by student members and myself about how beehives work socially. Sort of the basics of beehive interpersonal communication, lifecycle, and all those sorts of things -- biology.

And then we also want it to be able to give students some skill, some hands-on experience of, "How do you actually keep bees?" So it's one thing to know about how bees operated and what the queen does and things like that. But it's another thing to have that hands-on experience to figure out, "What you actually need to do to keep the hive alive and extract some honey?" "If that's what you're interested in.

The campus garden in its current shape has been here for about four or five years, and it's fully operated by students. So they're the ones out there, planting things, weeding, watering, harvesting, problem shooting, all that sort of stuff. All the food that is grown is donated to local organizations in our area fighting food insecurity. And we follow organic gardening principles as much as possible.

In 2019, we have grown 745 pounds of food and then donated all of that. This year for 2020, we're over 900 pounds so far, and we still have a little bit left with some pumpkins and things like that. So I think we're going to hit 1,000 pounds this year. I think knowing where our food comes from is really important. It's something that every person interacts with every single day, hopefully three times a day.

We have a lot of room for improvement. And we have to make changes because how we're currently living is not sustainable. So I'm trying to raise awareness about ways that we can change that while still having a happy and fulfilling life, but do it in a way that's less impactful on the environment.

We have majors in Earth Environmental Science, we have Environmental Studies, we have Ecology, we have Biology, and students have been able to use those different programs in different ways. And we have a fantastic facility, 87 acres. It's physically part of campus. The research isn't strictly academic, but there's an applied element to this where it can be converted or used to solve direct environmental problems as they occur. It's beautiful to see!