The first and last thing many of us do everyday is check our phones. A quick peak turns into 2 hours of scrolling, your group chat notifications are registering on the Richter scale, and an endless stream of emails often leaves you feeling drained and more disconnected than before. Sound familiar?
Combined with classwork and extracurriculars, one NIH study found that college students in the U.S. are spending upwards of 14 hours (!) per day on a screen. With those numbers, it doesn’t take a medical professional to realize that this isn't the best thing for our minds and bodies. We know that we should “touch grass” more often, but busy schedules, transportation barriers, and a lack of ideas can make meaningful time outdoors hard to come by in college. On UD’s campus, our green space is maintained by the fine folks at Facilities Management – and their Office of Energy & Sustainability is creating new opportunities to get some Vitamin D down at Old River Park.
You might not know it yet, but Facilities Management runs a fully operational urban agriculture and composting facility called Flyer Farm. About a half-mile down the hill from central campus, students and staff are growing and harvesting crops, taking care of chickens, and keeping bees. The food scraps you throw away on campus end up down here, and we’d like to see you down here too.
When we asked our student staff what they liked most about working on the Flyer Farm, they made it clear that it was a welcomed break from their routine and screens. Gardening is a simple, tangible way to improve your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Repetitive tasks like weeding and pruning mindfully anchor you in the present moment. Low-impact cardio and safe exposure to the sun release feel-good endorphins that can carry you the rest of the day. Fostering the life of plants and pollinators centers our interconnectedness with all of God’s creation and our responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth. Best of all, the produce grown at Flyer Farm is donated to Miami Valley Meals and the Brook Center – so all that hard work goes directly to feeding our neighbors and classmates.
The Office of Energy & Sustainability is actively seeking out partnerships so that student-led organizations, faculty-led courses, and staff-led programming can utilize our outdoor space. Some ideas might include: volunteer service days, course visits related to farming/nutrition, and wellness events like yoga in the garden. If you’d like to brainstorm ideas or take a tour of Flyer Farm, please contact the Office of Energy and Sustainability at sustainability@udayton.edu.
This post was written by Austin Ward, AmeriCorps VISTA Member with the University of Dayton’s Office of Energy & Sustainability.