Consider a single paper cup. Seems harmless. It is only paper after all. Multiply that cup by a student population of 4,350 who may purchase up to three beverages per day using paper cups. Then consider the 210 days per year those 4,350 individuals are using those said cups three times daily…

Yes, 2.7 million cups each year on this small campus being used and discarded. Enter in the “enviro-mug” program allowing students to reuse a single mug for coffee across campus. Does it make a difference? You do the math.

SUNY Potsdam is considering this and a whole lot more. With all the national attention given the environment these days; as well as the College’s 200-year commitment to stewarding the health and well-being of the North Country and Adirondacks, it is more than just skin deep. It has become part of the muscle tissue that moves the campus in both living and learning, infiltrating the very nature of our liberal arts and sciences education. With a generation of students taking the lead supported by Potsdam opportunities like the only Wilderness Education minor in the SUNY system, an Environmental Sciences program where the Adirondacks are your classroom as well as leading research in endangered species of the region, the Potsdam experience now, more than ever, includes developing environmental leaders of the future.

MAKING THE BIG HIKE

Wearing both a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and a Friends of Mt. Arab patch on her sleeves, 21-year-old Katie Christman of Canton, NY, greeted a group of hikers in early July who had made their way to the 2,503-foot summit of Mt. Arab in the northern Adirondack Mountains. She was there for several weeks this summer serving as the de facto interpreter for the mountain, where 15,000 visitors climbed up a nearly 90-year-old steel-framed fire tower that stands on top to take in majestic views of the Adirondacks.

“Mt. Arab has an interesting history,” she told the crowd who were catching their breath after a moderately difficult half-hour hike. “A plain, wooden structure was built in 1912 for viewing purposes only. But a series of devastating fires in the early 1900s took a heavy toll on the Adirondacks. Farmers scorched the land to encourage blueberries and raspberries to grow, and sparks from

trains caused many fires. The state built this steel tower in 1918 as part of a program to detect fires across the Adirondacks.”

On the one hand, this is an internship for Christman, and on the other, it’s a job. She was stationed at the top of Mt. Arab as part of the capstone requirement for her Environmental Studies major at SUNY Potsdam. But she got paid too.

For students majoring in Environmental Studies, or ES for short, the capstone requirement is taken between the junior and senior years. But it’s hardly a chore for ES students since many will go on to pursue careers related to the outdoors and environmental conservation. Most of the students serve as interpreters at several fire towers scattered across the Adirondacks. The capstone requirement also dedicates the ES program and its students to service learning, giving back vital time and resources to the Adirondack region for very little cost to the state.

Potsdam’s ES program is also unique in that it places SUNY Potsdam students in the center of a debate that dates back more than 35 years between the state, specifically the Adirondack Park Agency, and the residents who live within the Park’s “Blue Line.” The APA has the authority to regulate development even on private land, and it often has drawn scorn from local residents for infringing on their property rights.

Since aerial reconnaissance rendered the use of fire towers obsolete for decades, the state has either dismantled or abandoned dozens of the structures — some of which date back nearly a century. Local residents and visitors, however, see the fire towers as both a great destination to view the Adirondacks as well as a strong symbol of the region’s history.

“The fire towers are a symbol of this region’s history and the mark people left on the landscape,” Dr. Wilson said. “Residents often view the DEC as inept and the state as not caring about their land rights, and there has been little attempt to ease residents’ concerns. Our program and the students who participate are the glue that bring the state and the local communities together.”

Recently the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation awarded SUNY Potsdam $186,000 in start-up funding for the new Adirondack Fire Tower Association, a nonprofit educational group organized by Dr. Wilson. Those funds will be used to support educational programs at 18 fire towers throughout the Adirondacks and benefit the ES capstone program at the towers.

This model of student interns partnering with DEC rangers and local tower communities, Wilson said, will become the standard operating procedure written into the State Land Use Master Plan.

OUR GRASS IS GREENER

The Environmental Studies program took years to develop, and Dr. John Omohundro, distinguished teaching professor of anthropology and director of learning communities, was one of the principle founders.

In the late 1990s, about a dozen faculty members got together to discuss putting together an interdisciplinary program modeled after the one at Middlebury College in Vermont. The group decided the program would be comprised of one-third science, one-third humanities and one-third skill.

Begun in 2003, the program quickly swelled to 34 majors by the end of the spring 2007 semester. Currently the program has only two professors: Drs. Omohundro and Wilson. But, there are plans to hire an additional professor this fall and expand the program to 40 majors.

For Dr. Omohundro, the reasons for creating the ES program were obvious.

“We live in one of the neatest places in the world,” he said. “It’s not a question of if SUNY Potsdam should teach something related to the environment. We have to teach this course.”

The ES program is not about creating scientists. The program is designed to give students a liberal arts grounding that they can take out in the world as environmental interpreters, educators, communicators, writers, nonprofit and corporate leaders, and even policy analysts.

Think of the capstone experience as an internship preparing ES majors for their first job in the field. The students aren’t there just to give the facts and figures; they’re there to provide guests with a sense of history, where things stand now and what must be done to preserve the environment both locally and globally.

In addition, the students must work on their own interpretive project, the equivalent of a senior thesis. Last year, a student constructed a wrap-around sketch for the fire tower of what visitors were seeing, listing mountain names, elevations and factoids.

Katie Christman, is planning on putting together a recreational guide for several of the mountains with fire towers, including Mt. Arab, Blue Mountain, Bald Mountain and Pokomoonshine Mountain. While she’s not completely sure how to put it together, she believes it will benefit visitors to the fire towers.

That’s the difference with ES students. They’re not just interested in completing the work required to get their degree. These students want to give back something to the region and enhance the environment while educating those who visit the Adirondacks.

COMING TO A MIDDLE GROUND

On April 14, under the watchful gaze of the distinctive of the Satterlee Hall clock tower, several dozen students began assembling just before 10 in the morning, donning sweatshirts, knit hats and gloves and disheveled hair from waking up much too early for a Saturday. Joining the group were several college professors, who had come in support of this young group that was about to take part in its defining moment as a new student organization at SUNY Potsdam.

From Satterlee Hall, they began their short trek into the village of Potsdam, armed with a message that was being delivered at that exact moment in rallies similar to this one all across the nation: “Stop global warming and cut carbon emissions by more than half by the year 2050!” The group called itself Middle Ground, and they were taking part in a national day of climate awareness known as Step It Up.

Middle Ground began as an idea back in 2005, when Dr. Michael Wilson, director of field studies for the Environmental Studies program, suggested to Kevin Chlad, senior at Potsdam and current president of Middle Ground, and recent graduate Sarah Cihak that they should organize a student group that was committed to environmental awareness.

Chlad and Cihak decided to play Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth on campus last fall and use the screening as a way to tell the audience about their new organization.

Nearly 75 people attended the showing of the film, and close to 20 people showed up at the first Middle Ground meeting.

“I had no idea how the campus would respond to the movie or our group,” Chlad said. “Then I saw all of the people at the movie, and I realized people really do care about this.”

SUNY Potsdam already has the luxury of being located in a very rural portion of New York, a state with the third largest population in the country. The campus nearly touches the Blue Line that defines the Adirondack Park, which is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States — bigger than either Yellowstone or Yosemite national parks. Yet despite its serene surroundings and relatively clean air, the students who comprise Middle Ground believe that they, too, must address the issues affecting global warming and take immediate action to preserve such sacred lands as the Adirondacks.

Instead of staying on campus, Middle Ground brought their message to the surrounding community in an attempt to broaden the scope of their reach and deliver their message to a larger audience.

The community not only listened, they embraced what Middle Ground had to say. First, a Clarkson University group also staging a Step It Up rally joined Middle Ground. As the rally wound its way through the streets of Potsdam, community members honked their horns, raised their fists in support and even changed the direction they were walking in order to join the marchers that were growing in numbers.

“We started with about 20 students and some professors,” said Chlad, “but as we were marching through town, people kept joining in, and the group just kept getting bigger and bigger. It was absolutely amazing.”

Chlad credits his grounding in the outdoors from being an Eagle Scout and his fondness for hunting and fishing that motivated an interest in preserving the environment and majoring in Environmental Studies.

Chlad, who began his college career at Clarkson University, transferred to Potsdam specifically because of the College’s ES program. In fact, most of Middle Ground’s founding members also are ES majors who literally have used the Adirondacks as their classroom.

Now that they have returned to campus this fall, Middle Ground members plan to maintain their level of enthusiasm. They are already planning camping trips, potluck dinners, movies, community service events and guest speakers. Their goal is to continue attracting students to the group while drawing community attention to the broader issue of global warming.

By the time Middle Ground’s march had ended, close to 100 people had filed in to take part in the Step It Up rally. In addition to the Middle Ground students were senior citizens, young professionals and even families and their children. The crowd carried with them an enthusiasm that this small rally in a rural town was actually making a difference and drawing attention to the issue of global warming.

A TURTLE GREEN WITH ENVY

Trudging through water and bog up to their knees, Dr. Glenn Johnson and a group of students are looking for clues.

A victim: Yes.

Its name: the Blanding’s turtle.

The misdeed: A loss of natural habitat, namely swampland across the northern tier of the United States and the Maritimes of Canada.

The perpetrator: You, me and everyone who has encroached upon lands that once belonged to nature.

Even as a child, Dr. Johnson, currently an associate professor and chair of the Department of Biology, always loved the creepy, crawly things that either intrigue or scare little kids silly.

Fast forward several years, and Dr. Johnson became more and more interested in conservation as well. He went on to attend SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse and earned his Ph.D. in biology in 1995.

As a professional biologist, Dr. Johnson became interested in the Blanding’s turtle while conducting research during the 1990s, a reptile that is listed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as a threatened species.

The turtles seem to have very specific wetland habitat requirements, which means not all wetlands have the ability to support the species. Their habitats often are cut in two by roads traversing the low wetlands of northern St. Lawrence County. And like sea turtles and tortoises, Blanding’s turtles are late to mature, limiting their reproductive potential. The turtles’ genetic diversity also remains largely unknown, and low levels may indicate the species has splintered into small, isolated populations that suffer the negative consequences of inbreeding.

“There are several environmental challenges,” Dr. Johnson said. “The turtles can be found in wetlands of the St. Lawrence River and Adirondack watersheds, but they have very specific requirements. We’re trying to learn more about their environments and their genetic populations to find out how we can help increase their numbers.”

Dr. Johnson has become an expert in his field. He recently co-authored The Amphibians and Reptiles of New York State: Identification, Natural History and Conservation, a book that carries the themes of identification, natural history and conservation. The book is the first of its kind produced to identify the amphibians and reptiles of New York, a large and heavily populated state that hosts a surprisingly diverse and interesting community of amphibians and reptiles.

Dr. Johnson authored the section concerning snakes and contributed to all the other sections as well.

Armed with a team of seven Potsdam students, Dr. Johnson and his assistants spent the summer searching wetlands throughout St. Lawrence and Jefferson counties, trying to understand the species a little bit better. In the end they found that the largest concentration of Blanding’s turtles in the state lives in wetlands scattered around Potsdam.

Dr. Johnson wants to improve the conservation outlook by understanding the distribution of the turtles throughout the North Country, their aquatic versus nesting habitats, and where the turtles winter. Dr. Johnson is also working with a team from Clarkson University to understand the impact of roads and traffic on the turtle population.

“Many roads in the North Country cut right through low-lying wetlands,” he said. “Barriers have been set up in some places to limit the amount of road kill of different animals. I’m currently working with the Department of Transportation to see how we can do something that would keep turtles away from the road and in their habitat.”

Dr. Johnson has received a number of internal and external grants in support of his research and a faculty-student summer research program. Recently, he was awarded funds from the Robert J. Hill ’77 Endowment for Environmental Science, established by Potsdam alumnus Bob Hill for the investigation of and solutions to environmental challenges facing the Adirondacks and St. Lawrence Valley regions. Dr. Johnson plans to use the funds awarded to further his research of the Blanding’s turtle.

Dr. Glenn Johnson put to rest a local controversy that has been stirring in Potsdam for quite some time. For years, the proposed Super Wal-Mart on a site just west of the village has been controversial for many reasons. At one point, plans were halted because a Blanding’s turtle had been found dead on the side of the road near the proposed Wal-Mart site.

Environmentalists claimed Wal-Mart was proposing building a store on a site inhabited by an endangered species and even threatened to sue the company.

While a few Blanding’s turtles may live in the general vicinity, Dr. Johnson said the wetland near the proposed site does not display the preferred characteristics of Blanding’s turtle habitat. It is also quite unlikely, Dr. Johnson said, that the land near the site is used by the turtles for breeding.

“The turtle really has very specific nesting requirements,” he said. “And while we don’t completely understand all of their needs, there’s not much evidence that shows this site is one preferred by the turtle.”