供娱乐、学习和研究之用

的脊’ Kirkbride complex was sculpted from bricks formed from the grounds, creating lakes that contributed to a healing landscape for the mental health facility’s patients. For generations of OHIO students and the community, it was a place for recreation.

While those lakes no longer exist—victims of frequent flooding and the subsequent 霍金河改道—the land at 的脊 continues to provide town and gown opportunities for recreation as well as learning and research.

Roughly 580 of 的脊’ more than 700 acres have and will remain undeveloped. 根据山脊框架计划, 163英亩已被指定为保护区, 预留作学术及娱乐活动之用.

The approximately 205 acres of land northwest of 的脊 Green serves as 的脊 土地的实验室—its wildlife, more than 500 plant species and historic usage making it one of OHIO’s most unique classrooms and research spaces.

“The whole 脊 complex is an incredibly rich resource,” says Dr. 布莱恩·麦卡锡, MS ’84, professor of forest ecology and senior associate dean of faculty research and graduate studies for the College of Arts and Sciences. “它与newbb电子平台并列, and the value of that is almost incalculable in terms of student, 教职工对物业的使用情况, 无论是为了娱乐, 个人或职业原因.”

McCarthy is one of three faculty members who serves on 的脊 土地的实验室 Committee, managing research conducted on the property—once home to the farmland and orchards that made the mental health facility largely self-sufficient and provided purposeful work as part of the patients’ treatment.

“That area has such a long history of human use,” adds McCarthy. “These forests and fields are really an artifact of a hundred years ago. It gives us some insight into what was going on biologically back in that era that’s hard to come by otherwise.”

Dr. Jared砍伐森林, 环境与植物生物学副教授, has been fascinated by the 土地的实验室 since joining the OHIO faculty in 2006. He’s uncovered mysteries—like why Radar Hill is grassland instead of forest, working with a geology professor to determine that millions of years ago the hill was part of a freshwater lake—and uses the 土地的实验室 as a natural extension of his classroom.

他说:“这只是一块宝石。. “It has so much diversity and hits on so many key concepts in plant and forest ecology.”

The soil pits DeForest has dug at the 土地的实验室 allow students to read the soil and determine the history of the area over millions of years. Students in his dendrology class are able to find nearly 40 species of trees on just one of the 土地的实验室’s trails. And the photographs he has taken there over the past 14 years illustrate changes in the forest.

“Showing students these pictures creates an awareness of how dynamic a forest is, but it changes on timescales that make it difficult as humans to understand,德福里斯特说。.

在过去的五年里, doctoral candidate Kelsey Bryant has been doing field studies at the 土地的实验室.

“You have literally four or five different ecosystems within walking distance at 的脊 土地的实验室,布莱恩特指出. “不到半英里, 有人在研究生物燃料, 美洲板栗研究, 昆虫的研究, 野生动物研究, 森林的研究. I’ve made friends and work connections because of the 土地的实验室.”

为了她的论文, Bryant studied how different trees respond to changes in water availability and annual weather, 在土地实验室观察六种树木.

使用由太阳能电池板供电的传感器, Bryant was able to determine how water moves in the trees, each species with its own internal water movement structure. 使用绳索, 以免伤害她的臣民, 布莱恩特会爬上树去摘树叶, taking measurements that indicate the amount of water stress the trees were experiencing, 是什么影响了它们吸收的二氧化碳量.

“It’s really interesting how trees—that have the same access to water, the same environments but different vessels through which they move water—behave completely differently,布莱恩特说。. “Does that mean that in 50 years one of those species may not be as successful? That’s possible, and that’s really the broader significance.”