In December 2016, Environmental Studies major Rachel Marklyn asked us to produce an aerial view of the succession plots, on the environmental preserve. The succession plots are designated areas of a field that receive different treatments— mowing, tilling, and goat grazing— at different intervals, in order to study the long-range effect of those treatments on forest growth.

For Rachel’s senior project, she was creating a series of information signs for the preserve, one of which was about the succession plots. The wintertime photo was not very colorful, but the borders of the different plots were clear.