Renovated UNH Earth Science Building to be Greener, Leaner
For half of its nearly 80-year history, James Hall at the University of New Hampshire served as home to the Department of Earth Sciences and in that time many a rock and fossil found a home there as well; students and faculty returned from field trips loaded down with samples, and collections were donated by amateur rockhounds.
So when it came time to close the building’s doors and begin its current deconstruction and renovation, great heaps of stuff – from trilobites, coprolites, geodes and petrified wood, to quartz, mica, chunks of granite and gobs of glacial till – had to be culled through by the resident experts.
Department collections of rocks and minerals used for teaching and research were updated with the best of the bunch. And the rest, more than 10 tons of aged bounty from the Earth, was donated to a group of educators and mineral collectors who, during an open-invitation-rock-and-fossil-bargain-basement giveaway, mined the piles and stuffed knapsacks, bags, boxes, and suitcases on wheels with the prized, dusty relics.
“Someone says ‘free rocks’ and I’m there,” enthused an elementary school teacher from Stratham, N.H. Said a 7th-grade Earth science teacher from Gilmanton, N.H., “To me, this is what it’s all about – getting materials like these into kids’ hands. What a great service this whole day has been.”
“Much of the material was either redundant or didn’t fit into our core mission, which is teaching and research, says Will Clyde, chair of the Department of Earth Sciences.” Clyde adds, “We’re not a museum and so our thought was to get these materials into the hands of people who could use and enjoy them the most.” Mission accomplished.
Clyde notes that the great unloading also provided the university’s Department of Civil Engineering with a new collection of rocks for geological engineering courses, the Transforming Earth System Science Education (TESSE) program with sample sets for teachers in their summer institute, and the Chemistry Department with samples for an Inquiry class on symmetry.
Today, James Hall has shed more than tons of rocks and minerals; the building is being gutted and selectively dismantled while at the same time fresh concrete is poured and steel beams are erected.
The renovation will create the university’s first bonafide green building. UNH has registered the building's construction with the U.S. Green Building Council to seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED certification. LEED is a rating system used to measure projects on their efficiency and sustainability practices.
Tom Kelly, UNH’s chief sustainability officer, notes that the university is pursuing a sustainable energy future through emissions reduction policies, practices, research, and education. “Specifically we look at curriculum, operations, research and engagement, and the cumulative impact of things like sustainable buildings and the innovative teaching and research done within them. With the sustainable renovation of James Hall students at UNH experience our values and commitment to sustainability in very tangible ways,” Kelly says.
The project is a part of the Knowledge Economy Education Plan (KEEP NH), which was passed by the state legislature in 2005 and has provided over $109.5 million on campus renovations for science, engineering and high-technology facilities. ($25.5M for James Hall)
The new James Hall will provide the laboratories, classrooms, lecture halls, and offices for the Department of Earth Sciences, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Ph.D. program in Natural Resources and Earth System Sciences, and the undergraduate program in Environmental Sciences.
While making way for the new, the university is also preserving two important components of the original building: the main stairwell at the entrance and the geological topography map that was bolted on the stairway wall for decades and which will now undergo a major renovation.
The 12-by-16-foot wooden relief map was completed around 1878 by New Hampshire's first geologist, Charles H. Hitchcock, who, with help from three colleagues, mapped the geology of all of New Hampshire, eastern parts of Vermont, and western Maine.
Originally located at Dartmouth College where Hitchcock taught, the map was brought to UNH’s Thompson Hall in 1894. In the 1930s the map was moved to Conant Hall and updated with New Hampshire geology as it was understood at the time. In 1966 the Hitchcock map was dismantled and relocated to the lower foyer of James Hall where it stood for 42 years.
Notes, UNH geology professor Wally Bothner, who is heading up the restoration effort, “Our intent is to repair the map – there are lots of cracks and some missing mountain tops – and restore it to Hitchcock’s original bedrock geology of 1878.” The 1933 restoration of the map not only updated the New Hampshire geology thereby altering its historical significance, but also painted over the western Maine and eastern Vermont geological features first interpreted by Hitchcock in the late 1870s.
Bothner notes that restoring the map back to Hitchcock s original interpretation is important historically as well as for enhancing its use as a teaching tool.
“It’s a very key part of the way some of us teach geology because students can study it and compare it with other, more current geological maps that will also be hanging nearby, and this will allow them to understand better the evolution of the science of geology,” Bothner says.
UNH is fortunate, Bothner adds, to have received funding support for the map restoration project from the UNH Parents Association. Undergraduate students are taking part in the effort.
The renovated James Hall is slated to reopen late in 2009.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a New England liberal arts college and a major research university with a strong focus on undergraduate-oriented research. A land, sea and space-grant university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling 11,800 undergraduate and 2,400 graduate students.
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Photographs available to download:
Photo 1:
www.ceps.unh.edu/images/rock_giveaway.jpg
Caption: More than 10 tons of aged bounty from the Earth, was donated to a group of educators and mineral collectors who, during an open-invitation-rock-and-fossil-bargain-basement giveaway, mined the piles and stuffed knapsacks, bags, boxes, and suitcases on wheels with the prized, dusty relics.
Credit: UNH Photo Services, Lisa Nugent
Photo 2:
www.ceps.unh.edu/images/James_Hall_exterior300dpi.jpg
Caption: Today, James Hall has shed more than tons of rocks and minerals; the building is being gutted and selectively dismantled while at the same time fresh concrete is poured and steel beams are erected.
The renovation will create the university’s first bonafide green building.
Credit: EYP Architects
Photo 3:
www.ceps.unh.edu/images/HitchcockMap1.jpg
Caption: The 12-by-16-foot wooden geological relief map was completed around 1878 by New Hampshire's first geologist, Charles H. Hitchcock, who, with help from three colleagues, mapped the geology of all of New Hampshire, eastern parts of Vermont, and western Maine.
Credit: UNH Photo Services, Doug Prince
