High schools in Newport News, Portsmouth, Williamsburg, Hampton Hanover, Virginia Beach, and Northern Neck have partnered with CNU to conduct meaningful, authentic research on the salt tolerance of Atlantic white cedar seedlings.
In our third year, we have over 200 participating students at 10 schools in the Tidewater region.
Fear to Hope is expanding throughout the range of Atlantic White Cedar, Maine to the Gulf Coast.
Students in 7th grade through community college representing 28 schools from Maine to the Gulf Coast will test temperature tolerance, as well as salt tolerance in Atlantic white cedar
In fall 2021, CNU began its first F2H partnership with An Achievable Dream (AAD), a school in Newport News that provides a unique and disciplined academic environment to level the playing field for students in under-served communities.
As important partners in the Fear to Hope research, the students measured responses of AWC seedlings to a range of salt concentrations and various modeled scenarios to predict how the species will respond to climate change. The students were instructed on how to collect height, width, stem count, and color data, and they continued these measurements twice a week.
In February 2022, nine AAD students visited CNU's campus where they began analyzing their data, attended a lecture by Dr. Atkinson, took a tour of CNU's campus, and ate lunch in the dining halls.
49 AWC seedlings reside on CNU's campus as a reminder that ghost forests are forming all along the Atlantic Coast due to climate change.
Inspiration for this project was taken from artist Maya Lin's public ghost forest display. She erected 49 dead 40+ foot tall AWC trees in Madison Square Park, NYC.
Maya Lin produced a harsh symbol of the devastation of climate change and a stark reminder of a looming environmental calamity
A student waters the 49 seedlings that are growing publicly on CNU's campus as a symbol of hope and resiliency for this threatened ecosystem
11 CNU students accompanied by Dr. Atkinson ventured to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in December 2021 where they planted 750 seedlings of Atlantic White Cedar.
In November 2022, 6 students and Dr. Atkinson planted 1000 AWC seedlings!
CNU student groups had the opportunity to 'adopt' and name a seedling in order to raise awareness about Fear to Hope.
While adopters do not get to keep the seedlings, they receive periodic updates about the project and invitations to assist in gathering measurements of the seedlings.
