CLEMSON, SC - A wildlife habitat project on the Clemson University campus has received the Bootsie Manning Wildlife Habitat Conservation Award from the South Carolina Wildlife Federation.

The award, presented Jan. 12 at the federation’s annual conservation awards banquet in Greenville, recognizes the efforts of students in a Creative Inquiry course offered by Clemson’s College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences and the Emeritus College, which promotes continued involvement by the university’s retired faculty members.

Over the course of two academic years, about a dozen students have researched, planned and developed a piece of the Clemson campus near the Strom Thurmond Institute into an environment suitable for wildlife. The National Wildlife Federation has certified the area as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat, which means it provides the appropriate food, water, shelter and places to raise young that wildlife need to thrive.

“In planning it we were thinking mainly of butterflies, birds and ducks,” said LaCrystal Foreman, a junior from Columbia who has worked on the project since it began in the fall of 2006. “We put up a bird house and a duck house and we’ll be putting up a bat house this summer. This semester we will be doing a lot of replanting because we had to deal with the drought last summer.”

Clemson’s Creative Inquiry program engages teams of undergraduate students in intensive, discovery-oriented projects aimed at solving real problems and meeting real needs. The projects typically extend beyond a single academic year. Students learn critical thinking, research, leadership and team-building skills.

“We want every Clemson student to become a thinker, a leader and an entrepreneur,” said Provost Dori Helms. “In Creative Inquiry projects, students take ownership – they identify the problem, research it, come up with a method for solving it, and they take risks in the process. Instead of telling students what to do, faculty members in Creative Inquiry projects act as guides.”

The guides for the wildlife habitat project are Webb Smathers, a professor in the applied economics and statistics department, and Diane Smathers, director of the Emeritus College, who recruited four emeritus faculty members to serve as mentors.

“We wanted to get the emeriti involved because one of our objectives was to have an intergenerational aspect to this project,” Smathers said.

That was one of the things that appealed to Foreman. “This project was a different experience for me because I don’t dig in the dirt and I don’t hang out outside that much,” she said. “But this project is also about building relationships and building something on the Clemson campus, about being a part of something that we hope will last.”

As an English major, Foreman brought a different perspective to a team made up mostly of students studying the environment and natural resources. This blending of skills and interests is an important part of the Creative Inquiry approach, which aims to prepare students for a work world in which interdisciplinary teams are crucial for solving complex problems.

Foreman, for instance, helped present the project to Clemson administrators for approval, helped create a research poster for a universitywide presentation – and also helped dig in the dirt.

“It definitely took me out of my element,” she said. “I have learned about teamwork and research, about stepping back and looking at the big picture. It’s nice to be a part of something bigger than yourself.”

In addition to Foreman, members of the team include Olivia Pearman of Pfafftown, N.C.; Allison Cryns of Shorewood, Wisc.; Cassandra Smith of Duncan, S.C.; Victoria Luke of Seneca, S.C.; Sean McCashin of Mocksville, N.C.; and Carson Funchess of Central, S.C.