The Newest Housing on Eden Hall Campus? A Home for Frogs!
Working women of the Heinz Company pose with Sebastian Meuller, cousin to Henry J. Heinz and one of the first vice presidents of the H.J. Heinz Co. The land that hosted his summer home would eventually become Chatham’s Eden Hall Campus.
Once upon a time, Eden Hall was a retreat for the working women of the Heinz Company. There was a shallow pool outside the Lodge, about 10 by 15 feet, with blue tile and lights. Women would relax there, dipping their feet, chatting, and laughing. Over the years, the pool fell into disrepair. It filled with leaves from the surrounding trees. It wasn’t an eyesore, but nor was it a destination.
Today, thanks to Chatham’s newly-formed student chapter of Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and co-advisors Aquatic Laboratory Director Roy Weitzell, PhD and Assistant Professor of Water Resources Ryan Utz, the pool—now a pond—is indeed a destination: for local amphibians as well as students and classes.
“We do hands-on projects,” says Gabby Briceno ’22, a Bachelor of Sustainability major focusing on natural resource management and member of the SER, noting that while the Falk School of Sustainability and Environment offers research projects for undergraduate and graduate students, “we saw a need to bring in projects in general, that anyone can participate in.”
Over the summer, Weitzell, Utz, and students from the SER turned the pool into an ornamental pond and amphibian habitat. They seeded the pond with rocks and woody debris from around Eden Hall Campus, creating little reefs for amphibians to hang out around, and partnered with the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden to get plants from their lotus pond—cattails, rushes, water lotuses and water lilies.
Similar habitats exist in streams around the campus, but “the idea is to make the ecosystem accessible to people,” says Weitzell.
To that end, Wietzell, Utz, and Briceno, along with Dean of the Falk School of Sustainability & Environment Peter Walker, PhD, and FSSE Administrator Hallie Jensen spent a morning at a nearby stream, harvesting frogs, toads, salamanders, dragonfly larvae, and newts, to transport to their new home. Now curious visitors to Eden Hall Campus won’t have to strap on their waterproof boots to catch a glimpse of one of the habitats that make the surrounding land so special— they can do it from the comfort of The Lodge, and connect with a piece of campus history while they do.
Feeling inspired by Gabby and the Society for Ecological Restoration? Learn more about the Bachelor of Sustainability. Explore Eden Hall Campus and its offerings to students and the community here.