Integrated Learning-Living Communities
Business Ethics & Environmental Sustainability: Woodland Cemetery tree identification tour
Over half of the new cohort of BEES (Business Ethics and Environmental Sustainability) — members of the integrated living learning community — took small-group warmup hikes in Woodland Cemetery in September 2023 to learn the names of native and invasive trees in the region.
Crossing over to the south side of campus, the BEES traipsed through just a small quadrant of Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery, truly one of the high points in Dayton since it sits astride a large moraine deposited by the last of the glaciers (the Wisconsin) 10,000 years ago.
The BEES learned about the important service provided by ‘plane’ (sycamore) trees — cleaning up urban air pollution), and visited the grave sites of Wilbur (without the glasses) and Orville Wright and the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (whose first volume of poetry was published by the Wright brothers).
They also learned to identify prevalent ‘invasive’ species, notably the Japanese gingko (whose early foothold was stymied when only one gender was introduced), as well as important native species — oak (white and red), maple, black walnut, catalpa and buckeye trees. The BEES feasted on Dayton’s best buckeyes (made by Winan’s Chocolates) while taking in the view of downtown Dayton from the moraine’s high point.
