The WUSTL Energy Awareness Committee is offering faculty, staff and students the opportunity to celebrate Earth Day with a volunteer event at Tyson Research Center from 9-11 a.m. Saturday, April 24.
Volunteers will be asked to assist with the restoration of a glade, a native habitat in Missouri, at Tyson. Glades are rocky and shallow-soiled and are home to a diverse collection of native plants. Glades are naturally hard for trees to invade. Over time with the prevention of fires, cedars have invaded many glades in Missouri and are choking out native species, some of which only grow in healthy glades.
Volunteers will be asked to move cedar trees that have been cut down. Later, researchers will conduct a prescribed burn to rid the glade of non-native fire-intolerant species.
The project is part of a National Science Foundation-funded grant to better understand the restoration of glades.
Earth Day volunteers will have an opportunity to tour the LIving Learning Center at Tyson Research Center.
Volunteers also will receive a guided tour of the Living Learning Center, a 2,900-square-foot facility built to meet the Living Building Challenge of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (CRGBC).
The center is designed to be a zero energy and zero waste-water building — both requirements to earn “living building” recognition from the CRGBC.
The project is open to families in the WUSTL community but is not suitable for very young children, as volunteers will be transported in the back of a pickup truck. Thirty-five volunteer slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Earth Day is Thursday, April 22, and has been celebrated for 40 years.
For more information about the Tyson volunteer opportunity or to sign up, e-mail Deborah Howard at deborah_howard@wustl.edu.