Honors Students planting native species outside of Eberhardt Hall in 2021.

Photo courtesy of Xavier Reyes, Class of 2022. 

This story was produced in collaboration with CivicStory as part of the Ecology Civics Reporting Project.

When NJIT students step onto the campus in spring, they are welcomed by a vibrant landscape. Birds are chirping, cherry blossoms are in bloom, and native perennials are beginning to peek out through the ground. 

This transformation is a result of a concerted effort. Over the years, NJIT has invested in the future of the campus by planting more trees and replacing annuals with native species. 

Not only has this beautified the campus, but it has resulted in a noticeable increase in the diversity of animal species around campus. 

Students also contribute to these efforts through the Albert Dorman Honors College’s annual biodiversity project. 

“The project provided me with valuable experience working with a group and coordinating the group’s activities, as well as planning larger-scale projects shared by John Tomasello, a second-year Mechanical Engineering student involved with the Campus Center Terrace planting.

The biodiversity project is the centerpiece of the required First-Year Seminar class that all Honors students partake in.  As part of the class, students compete to design a garden that will be planted in the following year by the incoming class of Honors students. 

Dr. Burcak Ozludil, the associate director of ADHC, said the project began in 2017 with the goal of incorporating “a citizens science project” into the Honors first-year seminar curriculum. Initially, half of the sections worked on a waste audit project while the other half worked on the biodiversity project. But the biodiversity project proved to be so popular that all the sections transitioned to working on it. 

To put together their designs, students spend hours collecting data about rainfall and sun exposure and reading up on the properties of different types of plants. They then make use of their research to make the case for their designs at the annual Biodiversity Colloquium held every spring. In all, almost 40 groups from across ten classes compete to be the top proposal. The winning garden is then planted the following fall by the incoming First-Year Honors class.

The program doesn’t just beautify the campus. It also fosters friendships, gives students research skills that can be applied to future projects and classes, and offers them the chance to meet Douglas W. Tallamy, the author of this year’s book Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in the Yard, which is required reading for all in-coming Honors students. In fact, many students do not realize just how invaluable the experience is until they reflect back on it in their upperclassmen years.

 “Through FYS [First Year Seminar], I learned about the importance of the ecosystem to the point that it made me really want to have a garden when I [had] previously had no interest in plants,’’ said Azael Mayer, a first-year Electrical Engineering student. “The book we had to read for the course permanently shifted my view on gardens. The biodiversity project made me think about how plants work together, because I was trying to choose plants with different blooming periods so bees would have nectar all throughout spring to fall.”

Since its inception in 2017, Honors students have designed and transformed green spaces across campus. The first was a pollinator garden behind the Honors College; in the years afterwards, students planted native species near Eberhardt Hall, Laurel Hall, and Kupfrian Hall and added new plantings to the Campus Center Terrace. 

This year’s winning team, Insect Isle, will have their garden implemented outside of Faculty Memorial Hall by the incoming first-year students in Fall 2025. The schematic focuses on a deliberate layout that ensures that the potential for the space is maximized through the placement of trees and perennials.

“This project shows that we can all make a change,’’ expresses Ozludil. “It can be small but it can be impactful. We can always say these things, but the hands-on aspect is powerful. For most people, we look around and say, ‘This doesn’t look right,’ but don’t do anything. This gives us a way to do it. As importantly, we can see the idea[,] which is why it is great for First Years to see the difference they can make and is beneficial for our community, university, and world.”

This story was produced in collaboration with CivicStory as part of the Ecology Civics Reporting Project.

Co-published with The Vector

Arwa Ouali is a 2025 Ecology-Civics fellow and is Managing Editor of The Vector at NJIT.