Adam Bonilla

Katie Cavallucci

ENG 160

11/30/22

 

To the curriculum committee at SUNY New Paltz,

I would like to inform you about a problem in SUNY New Paltz, I noticed that New Paltz has a beautiful environment and atmosphere. The town has so much agriculture and small business that has a lot to do with nature and plants. The problem here is that there is so much potential for students to engage in activities or get education about the plants here in New Paltz.

What I am proposing is the idea of a class for plants and agriculture. What I mean by this is that it would be very interesting for students to engage inside and sometimes outside the classroom to grow their very own plants. There is plenty of evidence proving that owning a plant and taking care of it improves mental health, “A recent review of 42 studies demonstrates that even just being in the presence of indoor plants can improve mental and physical health.” This source came from weforum.org. So people can take this class as something to calm down and destress from other classes and the stress of being a college student. Another point I would like to bring up is that New Paltz is a town surrounded by plants and nature. It would be very helpful to build a community of college students that can help the community grow more  plants.

I would also like to mention that plants would also help reduce and slow down climate change. As you know climate change is a very serious problem happening in today’s world. A class showing the horrible effects and showing how we can help reduce it would help our students think and create solutions to stop this problem. When growing their own plants they can build a liking and start to show interests in something they never thought about before. “  An international team of researchers used a novel methodology combining remote sensing, machine learning, and terrestrial biosphere models to find that plants are photosynthesizing more, to the tune of 12% higher global photosynthesis from 1982 to 2020. In that same time period, global carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere grew about 17%, from 360 parts per million (ppm) to 420 ppm.” This shows that plant growing is a part of a solution to stop climate change. A point I would also like to talk about is that plants help humans because they are used for medicine. “Our current focus is traditional medicinal plants and major edible ones. I’m processing and archiving specimens for our botanical library. We use Forager, our proprietary artificial-intelligence platform, to predict plants’ human-health benefits.” This was written by James Mithcell Crow. This shows that plants benefit human health. This is great because students who are interested in this course can learn more about opportunities to help those in need who are sick and learn about plants that heal.

The reason this class is very important is that this class would be a GE meaning that anyone can take no matter what major they are in. With this class being open to anyone, other people could also get more insight and reflection on how the environment is and might use this information for future reference. Also this class has a lot to do with science and nature so those people in the

Overall, this course should be considered as a course for the many benefits of this class and opening up opportunities for those who are interested in nature and plants.

 

 

 

Info Sheet:

This course is about the learning and study of plants. This class involves activities such as planting your own plant, working as a group to grow a plant, going outside the class and planting and improving the agriculture in New Paltz. This class would also study the effects of  climate change and how plants can help reduce the ongoing problem in today’s world. This class would also involve studying plant growth and effective ways to help grow plants. This class would also help look at different plants and their functions. There are 2 texts I would like to mention that would be used in this class. “The Science of Plants” is a textbook written by Tom Michaels, Emily Hoover, Saint Paul, Laura Irish which shows how plants grow and what they need to grow and the science behind it. Another text I would like to include is Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology written by James D. Mauseth this shows the biology of plants and is very helpful to see the insight of a plant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

 

Crow, James Mitchell. “A deep-rooted appreciation for the health benefits of plants.” Nature, vol. 593, no. 7858, 13 May 2021, p. 306. Gale General OneFile,    link.gale.com/apps/doc/A661386772/ITOF?u=newpaltz&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=26db6333

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Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui “Easiest Way to Improve Mental Health: Get Some Houseplants.” World Economic Forum, 5 Aug. 2022, www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/houseplants-nature-mental-health-greenery-cognition.

 

 

Runwal, Priyanka. “Plants Buy Us Time to Slow Climate Change – but Not Enough to Stop It.” News Center, 8 Dec. 2021, newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/12/08/plants-buy-us-time-to-slow-climate-change-but-not-enough-to-stop-it.

 

Fewster, et al. The Science of Plants: Inside Their Secret World. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2022.