Community members invited to Walk in Penn's Woods on Sunday at Penn State Schuylkill

Sep. 25—SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — This year's rendition of the annual Walk in Penn's Woods event in Schuylkill County will be held at a new site: Penn State Schuylkill.

The walk, from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, will take visitors on a picturesque tour of the campus arboretum and will examine several species of trees.

"This is a terrific site," said Frank Snyder, a retired state forester and a member of the Schuylkill County Conservancy, who will help lead the walk Sunday.

While Schuylkill's rendition of the event has traditionally been held at parks, the conservancy shifted its focus this year to the Penn State campus, which has been recognized as a growing repertory of trees and plant life.

This spring, Penn State Schuylkill became the second Penn State campus to receive arboretum accreditation from ArbNet, a global network of arboreta. With more than 400 trees and 40 species documented on campus, Schuylkill earned the first step of accreditation, Level I, while the arboretum at University Park holds the more advanced Level II accreditation.

Mary Ann Smith, a lecturer of biology at Penn State Schuylkill, has led the arboretum accreditation efforts and will be on hand Sunday as visitors survey the trees and environments represented on campus.

"The walk we've chosen is handicap accessible," Smith said. "It's a pretty flat trail. You can learn a lot in a relatively short amount of space. ... If people don't want to do the whole walk, they can still get a lot of value just doing the (walkway) here."

A free event, Walk in Penn's Woods will take place primarily along the paved walkway on campus. Visitors can park on the campus parking lot and will meet at the entrance to the walkway, near the Nittany Lion shrine.

With the help of Will Thomas, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources service forester for Schuylkill and Carbon counties, Smith and Snyder led a demonstration of the walk Monday morning with students from Smith's environmental science class.

Thomas said he hopes to have volunteers at Sunday's event who will "elaborate about some value of urban forestry, some value of wildlife or a personal experience about the trees at each station."

The walk will move at a leisurely pace and will focus on approximately 15 sites across campus, including a pollinator garden and a creek near the southern end of campus.

A few Penn State Schuylkill students will also take part in the effort, sharing insights at select locations.

Among the trees to be discussed are Norway spruce, redbud, catalpa, crabapple, river birch, Japanese pagoda and Kousa dogwood.

"This is a tree that provides a little bit of cover for wildlife in the area," said Thomas, pointing to a small American redbud near the Nittany Lion shrine. "You don't always need to have a big, 60-foot spruce or Norway maple, like we have back there, to have cover for wildlife."

Later, Thomas led students toward a much larger tree — a Japanese pagoda, with a wide crown made of intersecting compound leaves.

Also known as a scholar tree, the pagoda is associated with academia or places of worship in many cultures around the world. At Penn State, the tree stands next to the campus' classroom building, fostering a sense of scholarship.

"This is a tree that has a great significance to different areas of the world," Thomas said.

Also featured in the walk will be a Kousa dogwood, which is part of a new campus initiative: Starting this weekend, community members can hang yellow ribbons on its branches in memory of loved ones.

"Hopefully, we'll have a station here, and there will be a table, with yellow ribbons," Snyder said. "You can put the name of someone who passed on, or someone you love — whatever you want to do."

First observed in 2017, Walk in Penn's Woods is an annual statewide event that aims to foster appreciation of the outdoors and forests across the commonwealth. Last year, the Schuylkill County walk was held at Frog Hollow Environmental Education Center in Wayne Twp.

Contact the writer: hlee@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6085