Beloit College
OP-10: Landscape Management

The College partners with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continually restore Chamberlin Springs, manually ridding the space of invasive species and replanting with native grasses. The area is largely used for ecology, biology, and hydrology research. The College maintains the Newark Road Prairie through the work of summer interns who monitor the natural hydrological cycles, conduct limited burns, and manually pull native species where present. This protected area is also largely used for ecology, biology, and hydrology research.

College faculty and research students work together to maintain the protected areas of Chamberlain Springs and the Newark Road Prairie. Faculty and staff conduct limited burns, and manually pull invasive species where present. This work is done to encourage the original oak savannah and wet-mesic prairie ecosystems that existed in the mid 1800s.

Any weeds that are collected on Beloit's main campus are taken to our vendor's offsite farm location to be shredded and composted. Invasive species at Newark Road Prairie and Chamberlin Springs are pulled and left to decompose at those sites.

Beloit College faculty and research students conduct limited burns and manually and mechanically pull invasive species to provide native species with more room to grow and naturally spread throughout the protected properties.

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Beloit College faculty and research students monitor the natural hydrological cycles of these two protected areas. There has been no development on either property as the Newark Road Prairie was designated a State Natural Area in 1974, and Chamberlain Springs was gifted to the College for educational and recreational purposes in 1946.

Beloit's Grounds Department uses a salt/sand mix to cut down on the use of salt. They only salt when necessary. Many snowfalls they will brush the snow off the walks to prevent having to use salt. Additionally the Grounds department has partnered with a Global Political Ecology class to research and try out alternatives to salt use, including cheese brine from a local creamery. Applying cheese brine before a snow fall helps the salt stick to the cement, and therefore be more effective in melting the snow and ice.

Both of Beloit College's protected areas are considered off of the main campus. Newark Road Prairie is a wet-mesic prairie remnant of the extensive prairie that covered Rock County in presettlement times. It is the largest known wet-mesic prairie in the county. A moisture gradient across the site results in differences in species composition. In the center is a sedge meadow that becomes drier on slight slopes to near mesic conditions on the west. Stands of tall cord grass and blue-joint grass dominate the lower portions; big blue-stem, Indian grass, and switch grass dominate the higher ground. More than 100 species of prairie plants have been recorded at the site including cream wild indigo, rattlesnake-master, shooting-star, sneezeweed, prairie blazing-star, Michigan lily, compass plant, prairie dock, asters, goldenrods, and milkweeds. Newark Road Prairie is owned by Beloit College and was designated a State Natural Area in 1974. About fives miles northwest of Beloit College, there is a quiet patch of woods. Nestled between patches of farmland, this 50-acre piece of land has remained untouched by development for years. This is Chamberlin Springs, a nature preserve owned by the college. In the 1800s the property was owned by Thomas Chamberlin, an accomplished geologist and 1866 Beloit graduate. In 1875, Chamberlin and his brother tapped into a small spring on their property and turned a simple woodlot into a big spring-water business—and a regional hot spot. The Chamberlin brothers’ brochure referred to the water as “the golden mean between excess and deficiency,” and claimed it would cure a laundry list of ailments, from rheumatism to whiny children. Visitors from as far as Chicago would come and stay for several days to soak up the health benefits of the spring water. Eventually the spring fell out of use, and the land was mostly forgotten, used only once in a while for picnics and retreats. In 1946, the Chamberlin family gave the land to Beloit College for educational and recreational purposes. Today, Chamberlin Springs is the site of many field trips and research projects, from animal behavior observation to cataloging of geological features."

Beloit College has areas on campus that are considered native landscaping, and control of noxious and invasive weeds is conducted through ad-hoc sustainable strategies. However, these have yet to be compiled and/or documented in an IPM.