Branching out

University of Delaware undergraduate student Kyle Dennis has always had a passion for science, but deciding whether to work with data or in a more people-focused field was never an easy question to answer. At UD, he discovered the environmental science major, which allows him to work on complicated scientific problems while also engaging with communities.

"With environmental science, you can go to the laboratory or research side of science, or you can go toward the social science side of things," Dennis said. "I love it all, so I'm glad I found a major that got me both of those things."

A native Delawarean, Dennis considered attending an out-of-state school until he took a tour of UD's campus.

"The campus is beautiful, and the size of UD is great. I didn't want to go to a huge school, but I didn't want to go to a small school either," he said. "That was one of the main drivers that brought me to UD. I just loved the campus."

He also enjoyed learning about the academic opportunities, including projects that allowed him to combine his love of science and interacting with the public.

One example: taking part in a tree inventory on the west side of Wilmington with the organization Green for the Greater Good. Through that project, Dennis inventoried trees by recording their locations, identifying the species and measuring their diameters. With the U.S. Forest Service's app Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities, he put all the data into a map.

"The important thing about the app is that it's publicly available - anyone can make an account, it's free and then they can see all of this tree data," Dennis said. "My work was just the beginning of the inventory. It's still ongoing, and there's been more work done by some landscape architecture students at UD, but we're hoping that it continues next year to finish the rest of the West Side neighborhood."

Another important aspect of the tree inventory was collecting data to determine whether the trees were touching power lines or buildings or causing sidewalk damage that limited accessibility.

"That's one of the good things about a street tree inventory," Dennis said. "You're there on site and you can identify these conflicts that the tree is having with the environment."

For his project in the environmental science capstone course, which is led by Vaishnavi Tripuraneni, assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, Dennis continued his work with Green for the Greater Good. He attended community events and handed out surveys to residents in Wilmington to gauge how they feel about trees, identify any issues they have with them in the city and better understand the community's knowledge of trees.

"One of my favorite classes that I took at UD was urban forestry, which is a class in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences," Dennis said. "I wasn't sure I would really be interested in it, but another thing I like about the environmental science program is that you have so many options with classes you can take. I went into urban forestry even though I've never really been a plant person, but I found it so interesting. It taught me a lot about how research is conducted and gave me some hands-on experience, which I appreciated."