Merry Lea’s Dr. Joel Pontius is a student of foraging. Whether he’s leading students on the Sustainability Leadership Semester’s canoe trip or boating on Alaska’s Cook Inlet, Joel has his eyes peeled for wild foods and his ears attuned to stories about them.
We begin a series looking at Merry Lea's place within its surrounding human community. The Merry Lea Sustainable Farm figures heavily in this issue. Also find out who became a master bird bander and who went to Alaska; who received a gift of honey and who gave time to help with sorghum.
Merry Lea’s master’s students prepare ecosystem presentations for their Natural History course. Throughout the course, they’ve each studied a particular locale, learning the species found there and the ways the ecosystem changes over time. Andrew Beal and TJ Rayhill kicked off the presentations with a look at areas near the Glacial Retreat Center.
It was not your typical pasture walk. Cows, chickens, nut trees, fruit trees, grapevines and raspberries were all sharing the same five acres at the Merry Lea Sustainable Farm (MLSF), Wolf Lake, Ind.
The Master’s in Environmental Education program (MAEE) at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College welcomed its largest cohort ever in July 2018.
What do you do when the things you were really good at are no longer who you are? This is the question that brought Stephan Powless, Lagro, Ind., to Goshen College. Unlike most undergraduates, Stephan is a 32-year-old father of three with an eight-year career in the military behind him. He’s been in combat in Iraq and in management at General Motors. He’s fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a soldier and demonstrated his earning power. The path forward is unclear, but it is not more of the same.
Ryan Miller has an ornery streak. He is not afraid to be the proud meat lover among vegetarians or the tractor enthusiast among market gardeners. Ryan’s assets include a practical bent and a scrappy willingness to live with the tensions inherent in today’s farming landscape.
Agriculture has always been a part of Hannah Wheeler’s life. Hannah grew up on a 40-acre hobby farm in Hudson, Mich., where the high school mascot is a longhorn steer. She has fond memories of exhibiting market steers at the local county fair and helping her family grow their own meat and vegetables.
Gabe Miller, a junior sustainable food systems major from Ithaca, New York, is a student who thrives at the intersection of big ideas and hands on learning. A conversation with Gabe zigzags between food sovereignty, human rights issues and the building of solar ovens
Clayton Wassilak, a rising senior from Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., is a man of many interests with the desire to tie them all together. The Agroecology Summer Intensive (ASI) at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College is helping him do that.
