The ultimate group project

The final semester for many Warnell students includes Senior Project, a class that lets students practice what they've learned.

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Between the books on dendrology and tree species lined up on Jason Gordon’s bookshelf is a thick, spiral-bound report with a plastic cover.

The report is from Gordon’s senior year at Warnell, when he and two other classmates worked together to evaluate a piece of property in North Georgia as part of Senior Project. The class is a rite of passage for many students (with an alternative being Senior Thesis, a solo undertaking), as they work as part of a group with students from different Warnell programs.

Working with a client—often a private landowner, but also government entities or organizations¬—students produce thick, bound reports that often include maps, charts, photos and a narrative with their recommendations. It’s a tall order for any student, but with graduation around the corner, Senior Project teaches a bit about stress management on top of serving as a capstone project.

“Yeah, Senior Project—it’s all these different kinds of skills wrapped up into this bundle. And that’s what makes it difficult,” said Gordon, who today is assistant professor of community forestry and also teaches the class each fall. “It’s not just about the final report, really—it’s about working with these different students, working with two instructors who oftentimes have different ideas and different suggestions, and then they have a committee. You have to weigh the options from what you’re hearing and justify it, and when you’re 21, 22 years old, you’re not used to that.”

This is the unique power of Senior Project, and why it’s both a grueling and exhilarating experience for students. The class has existed for decades and is a common feature across schools of forestry and natural resources, as many graduates go on to work in jobs that require similar kinds of reports.

In a way, it’s a microcosm of the world they are about to enter.

“You don’t really teach Senior Project; you coach people. You’re keeping them on time and getting them to certain milestones,” said Dale Greene, Warnell’s dean who taught Senior Project with wildlife professor Karl Miller for almost 25 years. The experience gave him added insights into how Warnell’s majors overlapped and introduced him to students he might never have met as a forestry professor. “It tries to tie everything together. It’s about the client and what they want to achieve, and that’s usually two or three things. Usually there’s a tradeoff, so you try to give them some options.”

The road to get there is where students learn the most.

The student experience

Earlier this spring, Chloe Cooksey, Patrick Maurice, Savannah Papadelis and Jon Lerner found themselves on the shores of a small lake just outside the Athens-Clarke County line. Surrounded by houses, the lake had been in existence for more than 40 years but lately was having some difficulties. Fish were small and algae was taking over in the summer.

The neighborhood’s homeowners’ association needed some assistance, and the students were there to help.

“We did water sampling—we took water samples from all the wetlands, and then we took sediment samples from the lake,” said Cooksey, who graduated this spring with a degree in water and soil resources. The project was in her wheelhouse, especially after her experiences working as a lab assistant and interning for the Upper Oconee Watershed Network. But for her partners—majors in wildlife sciences and forestry—the project took them a bit out of their comfort zones.

But in a way, that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.

“It’s an experiential learning course. It is the intention that they take the skills they learned in Warnell and apply that to, essentially, a consulting job,” said Gordon. “They choose a project, and then the instructors help them to help the client identify their objectives. That’s the first big challenge—it’s not your objectives, it’s your client’s objectives.”

For the students at Lake Oglethorpe, the objective was to understand potential sources of the algae and devising a plan to mitigate it. Oxygen levels in the lake were low, and an aerator the homeowners’ association was using seemed to exacerbate the problem.

So, the students devised a plan to beef up the wetland areas around the lake, which could help filter out potential runoff from nearby agricultural uses. In this way, the students’ expertise gelled; the wetlands plan allowed each discipline to shine in its own way.

“I think it just helps you become a more well-rounded student in the end, after you experience new techniques and new ways to collect data,” said Maurice. “It helps in the future, with jobs, to say you have some experience with water sampling. It’s not something I thought I’d be doing, but doing something new is good.”

An expanding role

The Lake Oglethorpe project was one of several nontraditional projects undertaken by students this past spring semester, but they are indicative of a recent trend.

The typical senior project takes a land management approach—the “consultant” role that is common for forests across the Southeast, where three-forths of the forested land is privately owned. But as more students come through Warnell with more varied interests and experiences, the senior projects they take on need to reflect these skill sets. This past spring, for example, senior projects included developing a trail system for an elementary school and a plan for a pollinator garden at Whitehall Forest.

Gordon said he and other faculty members are working toward a way of better defining expectations and learning outcomes for Senior Project, which would ensure all students have mastered a baseline of skills as part of the project. For example, students should show proficiency in creating tables and graphs, data analysis and spatial analysis.

“We strongly recognize the importance of these skills, and we’re getting closer to an idea of rigor for senior project,” Gordon said. “So, we’re moving toward a place where, to measure rigor, you have different measures for spatial analysis, to exercise their spatial skills, as well as data analysis skills.”

Students are encouraged to find a project or thesis topic on their own, as well as meet with professors in the previous semester to get the ball rolling. This also adds to the diversity of projects, as it gives students an opportunity to connect with previous internships and outside interests.

“Some of the best projects come from places a student has worked as a summer intern or even their regular job,” said lecturer Duncan Elkins, who teaches the spring section of Senior Project and runs Warnell’s data literacy program. “The hemlock woolly adelgid project from this past semester is a good example of that: Both students had worked for Black Hawk Farms doing HWA treatment, which got them thinking about whether there were better ways to protect the trees.”

Bottom line, added Greene, the template is the same: Students serve as a consultant, they work with a client, and they create a set of recommendations based on the client’s needs. “There are a lot of unusual projects that come along, and in my experience those are some of the most fun to shepherd through,” he said.

Positive outcomes

It’s been about a decade since Dick Phillips received his own copy of the management plan for Wakefield Farm, but he still keeps the thick report among his business files and continues to refer to it today.

While his main trade is on cattle, there are several tracts of forested land across his more than 1,000 acres in Hart County. He enlisted the assistance of Warnell students, for their senior project, for guidance on how to manage it.

“We’ve had students come up here before, and they’d spend a few hours. Well, these students came up here and they spent an enormous amount of time, and when they’d finished they made me a book,” said Phillips. “It’s about an inch thick, and it’s an enormously detailed report on the land conditions. … I was most impressed, and I have shown it to a number of folks who have come to visit the farm.”

The report generated by the students—Thomas Caudell, Zach Clark, Shannon Hotch and Kara Huntsman—is still referenced by Phillips’ consulting forester.

Bill Hawkins’ senior project report is just a few years old, but is proving just as useful. Hawkins owns 

about 600 acres near Sylvania. It’s home to an interesting mix of wetlands and hardwoods—including rare plant species such as stewartia, pawpaws, trillium and other wildflowers—and has been studied by experts at UGA, Georgia Southern University and Cornell University.

“What’s interesting is, for several years I was in the process of putting the property under a conservation easement with the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust. And what their senior project ended up reflecting was very similar to what the land trust suggested,” said Hawkins. “Basically, to put the creeks, swamp, hardwood forest and wetland area into a total preservation plan. We have trails going through it, but basically it would be left alone.”

The plan also called for selectively harvesting from the upland areas of mixed pine and hardwoods, following best management practices. “They had an idea that was kind of unique, in that you’d go in those areas and identify what was the primary species, whether it was pine or hardwood, and do small clearcuts and replant with whatever was the dominant species.”

It’s not uncommon for someone to look back on a project they did in college and wince. But in the case of senior project, the final product tends to hang around for a while—and often with pride.

Is there drama during its production? Absolutely—what group project doesn’t come with some degree of communication misfires and missed deadlines? But it’s all part of the learning process, said Gordon.

“One thing students need to learn—and this is part of the objective—is that this is what your life is going to be like. You need to figure out how to get along with people, and figure out group dynamics,” he added. The report that sits on his bookshelf? He’s still proud of it, years after the fact. “But I give all the credit to my partners, especially David Vinson. He was really the leader of our team and gets a lot of the credit for this.”

While Gordon and Vinson haven’t spoken since that Senior Project, it turns out they continue to have a shared connection: A senior project report sitting on their office bookshelf.

Today, Vinson is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Tallulah Falls, Georgia. He says he still brings the report out from time to time to show new hires.

“For me, it was great—it wasn’t just about one specific natural resource, it was about how to manage one while managing all resources,” said Vinson. “That was the key thing I took from it¬—they didn’t want us just doing a timber project or a wildlife project. They wanted us to combine resources and learn multiple areas. And we could play off our strengths.”