A new club has bloomed on campus, and they are anxious to grow.
Discover6 is the nature club brought to life by Jenna Beilby, the club president, and the rest of the board members: Tucker Mcnie, Abigail Barnett and Anne Marie Christensen. Beilby started Discover6 because of her love for nature and bird watching.
“I thought it would be fun to have a nature club on campus, because there isn’t exactly something in that niche,” she said.
“I’m excited to see Discover 6 progress and grow,” Barnett said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been involved in something in its infancy, and it’s been pretty neat to watch Jenna’s dream and vision become a reality.”
The club is planning on having events once or twice a month. The first event was a nature walk on the trails on campus.
According to Christensen, they will also “show some documentaries, and help coordinate God’s Good Earth Day, which is a celebration of Earth Day in April.”
In addition, Discover6 plans to cultivate the land and coordinate with the Corban Garden. “We are going to try to plant some native species that are not on our campus. Milkweed is a crucial plant if you want monarch butterflies,” Christensen said.
According to Beilby, they are also going to “remove some non-native and evasive plants.”
“We will probably go on another one of these hikes in the later spring,” Christensen said. “There’s going to be a lot more wildflowers, and a lot more trees starting to come out of hibernation.”
While the club technically began at the end of last semester, since Mcnie, Beilby and Christensen are taking the class Birds and Botany, taught by John Scott, their knowledge and excitement for nature and birds has deepened.
Lydia Goodman, Beilby’s friend, joined the club on their first nature walk. Goodman has learned birding from Beilby and now loves it just as much. She was excited to join the walk and go birding, for, as she puts it, “any opportunity is good.”
“This whole thing is exciting,” Beilby said, “encouraging students to get out and enjoy nature, and not just enjoy it, but also take care of it.”
Barnett reflected on the ways Discover6 can be used to glorify God.
“I think the club itself seeks to embody something that pastor and author AJ Swoboda described during a chapel back in the fall,” Barnett said. “We, as Jesus followers, need to remember to care for and appreciate the created earth, not so that we can make it last longer per se, but so we can practice stewardship towards what God has given us, in anticipation of Jesus’ return.”