Students Orient Visitors and Interpret Nature at Cool Spring
The moment your feet crunch onto the bluestone gravel parking lot at Shenandoah University’s River Campus at Cool Spring Battlefield in Clarke County, Virginia, you’re enveloped in the scents, sounds, and natural beauty of the meadows, ponds, and wildlife along the banks of the Shenandoah River.
This fall, 10 environmental studies students put that experience into context, developing new sign panels at the kiosk near the parking lot near where the trails begin. They also published a printed guide, “Discover Nature at Cool Spring. A Trail Guide for Families,” that leads visitors along a paved 1.2-mile route with nine stops. These stops include a riverside view, rocky slope, bat roosting boxes, pond and heron rookery.
The Shenandoah University students’ project began in April 2014 as part of a senior-level course, Community and Regional Studies, taught in alternate years by Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology Woodward Bousquet, Ph.D. The course included a month-long service-learning project designed to challenge students to meet local needs by applying what they learned in previous courses.
Cool Spring Site Manager Gene Lewis and staff member Ben Sawyer assisted with the project by moving and refurbishing the kiosk.
In addition, three interpretive signs explain the Battle of Cool Spring, which took place on July 18, 1864.
“I was really excited when our class chose the kiosk as our service-learning project, because we were some of the first students to connect the community to the Shenandoah River Campus,” said environmental studies and public health major Ashley Landes ’14.”There were so many little details to account for (like font size, panel dimensions quality photographs and approval from faculty). When the project was close to completion, I felt proud of our classes’ teamwork and dedication.”
“The greatest reward is knowing our kiosk will be … seen by students, faculty, families, and the community … for years to come,” said Landes. “It’s special to know our classes’ efforts made that possible. I am proud that we could help fill this need for our community.”
Each summer, more than two dozen great blue heron families raise their young in a “rookery” of nests clustered in the tops of riverside and rare bur oak trees. Bald eagles, beavers, and red-winged blackbirds also find homes at the river campus.
The property, located east of Berryville, Virginia, on the former Virginia National Golf Course, is open to visitors from dawn to dusk daily. No restrooms or other facilities are provided, but more than seven miles of paved paths and three miles of mowed pathways through the meadows offer access to hiking, bird watching, running and nature study.
Visitors heading east on Route 7 from main campus can reach the river campus by turning left immediately after crossing the Shenandoah River on Route 7. From there, Parker Lane leads approximately two miles to the parking lot below the clubhouse.
Since the course’s inception in 1995, environmental studies students have helped protect the Abrams Creek Wetlands, developed the “Winchester & Frederick County—Naturally!” brochure, prepared interpretive signs for the Redbud Run Greenway, and promoted linear parks in the Shenandoah Valley region.
– by Emily Burner and Cathy Loranger