EARTH

Binghamton University’s Vestal campus encompasses almost 900 acres. A large portion of this land has been left undeveloped and in its natural state. That’s just one of the things we’re doing to keep our campus green. Take a look at some of the others.

• Through Operation Green Space we’re pulling up the pavement and putting in the green — about 2 acres of it in fact! Since its implementation, this initiative has transformed more than 85,000 square feet of formerly paved areas on campus into green space, including the planting of Canadian cherry, maple and flowering pear trees.

• The largest and best-used lab on Binghamton’s campus has no workstations, sinks, computers or Petri dishes — it’s the 182-acre Nature Preserve. Encompassing forest, woodland and meadow areas, as well as a beaver pond and 20-acre wetland, the Nature Preserve is home to hundreds of mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds. In fact, it has one of the broadest ranges of animal and plant life in the Southern Tier. Although the Nature Preserve serves as a valuable educational and recreational resource, perhaps its most important contributions are to the environment — from flood prevention and improving water quality to supporting biodiversity and serving as a means for carbon storage.

• Did you know it’s possible to walk from a desert to the tropics in less than five seconds on Binghamton’s campus? It’s true! Our 12,500-square-foot E. W. Heier Teaching Greenhouse features four climates: warm temperate, cool temperate, desert and tropical. It also holds 6,000 exotic plants representing 1,200+ distinct species and serves as a living laboratory for plant- and ecology-related courses.

• Each spring, dozens of students volunteer to beautify the campus grounds during Spring Campus Clean-Up Day. These volunteers clear out trash and debris that has accumulated on campus fields and along the perimeter of our wooded areas during the previous winter.