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.
Are there jobs for people whose mission is “to inspire people to learn about and love the land through use of art?” Aly Munger, a 2017 graduate of Merry Lea’s master’s in environmental education program, found one at Artist Boat, Galveston, Texas. Aly’s title is “eco-art educator.”
On May 9, Merry Lea’s Environmental Education Outreach (EEO) team wrapped up its first year of Kinderforest in a long-awaited burst of greenness. For a full day every month, two classes of kindergartners from Wolf Lake Elementary School, Wolf Lake, Ind., traded desks and bulletin boards for tree trunks and the crunch of leaves underfoot.
