W&M Ecotherapy Experiences
Ellen Rowe, Madison McComas, Olivia Barrows, Mariana Thomas
Embedded Files
Project Overview & Goals
Project Overview & Goals
Our project focused on hosting free Ecotherapy events throughout the semester. We engaged students with easy and accessible Ecotherapy to increase awareness and wellness. Our goal was to educate William & Mary students on how to implement Ecotherapy practices into their everyday lives for stress management, improved well being and connection to nature. By planning free, engaging, fun events, we introduced students to some easy examples of Ecotherapy that they can continue after our events.
Team Intro & Roles
Team Intro & Roles
We utilized each others’ experiences and expertise to divide up the work to plan and host our events. Ellen served as team lead, which included keeping track of what needed to happen, communicating with others, reserving spaces, and delegating tasks. Madison handled the data collection and analysis, and was responsible for bringing comment cards, gathering additional data at events, digitizing data, and creating graphs. Olivia focused on outreach, communicating to clubs and posting events on Student Happenings. Mariana oversaw the budget, kept track of materials, and created promotional materials including flyers to post online and to print.
Background
Background
Audience
Audience
PERL’s primary audience with these Ecotherapy experiences is a population of William and Mary students who are either stressed, spend a lot of time indoors, or simply lack awareness of the natural resources accessible on this campus. We aimed to reach this demographic by utilizing social media marketing, holding events at convenient times and locations, and allowing people to drop in and out of the events.
Theories
Theories
Attention Restoration Theory, Kaplan 1995
Mental fatigue and concentration can be improved by time in or looking at nature.
Stress Reduction Theory, Ulrich 1991
Looking at nature or natural elements creates a sense of calm, or pleasure.
Studies
Studies
EFFECTS OF THE FOLIAGE PLANT ON TASK PERFORMANCE AND MOOD, Shibata 2002
Demonstrates how looking at plants increases productivity
Barriers to Nature Engagement for Youth of Color, Ibes 2021
Addressing external, psychological, and socioeconomic barriers for youth of color
Nature-based outdoor activities for mental and physical health: Systematic review and meta-analysis, Coventry 2021
Nature based interventions improve common mental illnesses among adults 18+ in community based environments
The Immediate Effects of a Group-Based Horticulture Experience on the Quality of Life of Persons with Chronic Mental Illness, Perrins-Margalis 2000
suggested that horticulture, when used in a group-based setting, has an immediate and positive effect on life satisfaction, well being, and self-concept
Participants felt more revitalized after exercising outdoors rather than indoors
Events!
Events!
Overview
Overview
Over the course of the semester, we hosted four free events open to all students, collaborated with a club on an event, led a class session, and participated in the Earth Day Showcase, for a total of seven events.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
At each event, we kept a tally of participants and interactions. Most events were self-paced, and participants were asked to fill out a comment card when they finished. Cards were printed and pencils were provided so participants could easily complete them on the spot. The cards collected basic, quantitative feedback with two questions about stress reduction and mood improvement, plus space for additional comments or suggestions. We used this data to create charts showing our results. Feedback was regularly used to improve recurring events like eco-art and tree tours and saved for future planning.
Eco-Art: Mandalas Pt 1
Eco-Art: Mandalas Pt 1
Our first event was on February 26, 11-11:45 am at the Crim Dell Meadows. To advertise, we posted and sent out flyers. During the event, we told participants how to make mandalas and handed out flyers with instructions. Students could choose from a selection of nature materials we had already gathered, or they could find their own.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
The first Ecotherapy nature mandalas event served mostly as a test run to investigate the best timing, location, and advertising strategies to move forward with. Originally, we had all of our ecotherapy events scheduled for Wednesday mornings at 11 and they would run for about an hour; however, after this test run, we realized that planning events in the afternoons and for longer periods of time would be more accessible for the student body.
Veggie Society Collaboration
Veggie Society Collaboration
For our second event, we collaborated with Veggie Society to host a wildflower seed packet making workshop. The event was during the clubs normal meeting time and location, Chancellors 113 at 7pm, on April 3rd. During the event, we provided wildflower seeds and paper. Participants folded packets out of paper, following the handout provided. They filled the packets with seeds and decorated the packets. We disussed how to plant the seeds, and some of the benefits of nature engagement during the workshop.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
The veggie collab made it clear that working with other organizations around campus is an extremely effective way to introduce students to Ecotherapy. The main struggle that we faced at the veggie and PERL collab was that we forgot to print out comment cards. This, however, proved to be a blessing in disguise because it caused us to create a Google form version of the comment cards, which we realized was an easier data collection method when it came to large, more organized groups.
Eco-Art: Mandalas Pt 2
Eco-Art: Mandalas Pt 2
Our second Mandalas event was also at Crim Dell Meadows. The event was on April 4th from 1-3pm. Just like our first mandalas event, we provided pre-collected nature materials, handouts, gave verbal instructions, and encouraged students to gather their own mandalas. We made some mandalas as examples before people starting coming as well, to inspire creativity.
We also created flyers with events for the rest of the semester to streamline publicity. We had these flyers at the rest of our events to tell participants of upcoming events.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
27 total participants
27 total participants
27 comment cards
27 comment cards
Selected Feedback:
“I loved getting to do this in a group. I think doing community centered events would build the love on campus.”
“It was awesome. I love that materials were pre-collected for use!”
“Do more like this! So relaxing”
“More of my friends should come to these”
“This was awesome, it made me more happy”
Interview Quotes:
“Made me feel at peace and more connected with nature”
“I was not expecting how much fun I would have to be honest. I was literally in the forest; I felt like a little squirrel”
“It was good to try something new. I have never done something like this before and it was very relaxing.”
“This was very introspective; I modeled interior and exterior parts of myself in the mandala”
“I would actually come back and do this again, especially since the weather has gotten so nice.”
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
For this second Ecotherapy experience, we changed the time to 1-3 pm on Friday afternoons, but kept our location within the Crim Dell Meadows. This time change and the addition of more hours allowed more students to join us, and the central location of the Crim Dell Meadows was also extremely helpful in getting students to stop and join us.
Tree Tour
Tree Tour
We led Professor Ibes' Ecotherapy class on a tree tour during their usual class time, 2-3:20, on April 9th. We split into two groups of around 10, and ran the same tree tour but in opposite directions. We had two leaders for each tour, and used the tree tour script previous PERL students created. At each tree, we alternated reading off the script, and provided any additional information we knew or wanted to share. We also encouraged students to engage with the trees, by touching the bark, leaves, and even eating some edible plants! We ended the tree tour with a discussion about how knowing more about our environment can create a stronger connection to nature. Students shared their takeaways from the tour, and memories they have connected to trees, either on campus or throughout their life.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
14 comment cards
14 comment cards
Selected Feedback:
“It would be nice if you could point participants towards an info sheet, nature identification app, website, etc. that helps people identify trees around campus that weren’t covered on the tour.”
“I think it would be cool if there was like a digital pamphlet with pictures and tree names that we could have afterwards to remember all the trees. I forgot some of them and would like to know them”
“It would be great to have little audio recordings on the green spaces map- so I could hear people’s stories about the tree.”
“The histories were particularly interesting!”
“I loved it!! Best part was eating the edible leaves!”
“This was great!”
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
For the tree tour, we utilized the same Google form that was created at the veggie collab to collect our data. We also found that people were most receptive to the tour when we gave them interactive prompts such as: go touch/smell/taste the trees. The only thing to be done differently would have been to incorporate more trees and create a more detailed script to use on the tour.
Free Plants
Free Plants
Our free plant giveaway was April 11 from 2-3:20pm. Originally planned for Sadler Terrace, we moved inside to Lodge 1 due to heavy rain. We gave away 60 succulents, stickers, and encouraged participants who could stay longer to repot their succulents and/or plant wildflower seeds.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
69 total participants
69 total participants
31 comment cards
31 comment cards
Selected Feedback:
“More events. This was awesome!”
“I love this, please do more!”
“This was great, keep it up!”
“This was literally perfect. Thank you!”
“This was so much fun! Thank you for doing this!”
“Very fun. I left educated and learned something.”
“This was lovely. I wish I knew about it sooner.”
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
The free plant giveaway event was a huge success that gave us the main takeaway to always have a rain plan. Luckily, we had thought ahead and reserved a space in Lodge 1; this location proved very accessible to the student body, as there was a lot of foot traffic. The only issue that we came across was that our booking was never officially confirmed through SUE, and we got kicked out early. Thankfully, by the time we were kicked out, we had already given away all the plants and collected the data.
Eco-Art: Nature Journals
Eco-Art: Nature Journals
Our last event was April 18th at the Crim Dell Meadows from 1-3pm. We gave away free journals, and most participants stayed to decorate the journals. We had construction paper, nature stickers, scissors, glue, and nature magazines for decoration.
Data & Methods
Data & Methods
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
For eco journaling, we continued our setup in Crim Dell Meadows and the usual time of Fridays from 1-3. Students were extremely enthusiastic about the journaling and often remarked that they could feel themselves becoming calmer. The lesson learned from this event was to have more scissors and glue because so many people were making the journals at the same time, and there were often not enough materials. We also had a garden catalog that people loved cutting pictures out of, and if we were to host this event again, we would definitely find more nature magazines.
Earth Day Showcase
Earth Day Showcase
On April 25, from 1-3, we joined the rest of PERL and other environmental groups on campus at the Earth Day Bash!
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Earth Day showcase was a huge success and was a great culmination of our semester’s work. We had some leftover materials from the planting event, which we used to have a mini planting event at our table for the showcase. The main lessons learned were to have more decorations for the table, such as table cloths, but other than that, the Earth Day showcase was extremely successful.
Reflection
Reflection
Succession & Sustainability
Succession & Sustainability
Assign different roles to each member of the team. We broke our roles down into these:
Team Lead: Oversees project management, scheduling, delegation, and communication with stakeholders. Responsible for reserving spaces and ensuring all logistical needs are met.
Data Specialist: Handles data collection at events (comment cards, Google forms), digitizes feedback, and creates visualizations for reporting. Maintains records of participant feedback and event outcomes.
Outreach Coordinator: Manages event promotion, contacts clubs and organizations, and posts events on platforms like Student Happenings. Builds partnerships with other campus groups.
Materials & Promotions Manager: Tracks inventory and budget, creates and distributes promotional materials (flyers, digital content), and ensures all event materials are prepared.
Start off with a trial run event (something low stakes)
We did a nature Mandala event in Crim Dell Meadows, and this allowed us to discover what time and location would work for our events
We found that Friday afternoons worked best for our group
Have flexibility in both location and data collection
Keep event formats adaptable (e.g., in-person comment cards and digital forms) for different group sizes and logistics.
Always have a backup plan for rain or venue changes.
Create promo materials with PERL Instagram to update participants on potential time/location changes
Plan an event starting off bi-weekly and then, as the weather gets warmer, once a week.
We found that our turnout drastically improved as the weather got warmer
It was also to have the first few weeks of the semester to focus on planning and materials before hosting the actual events
Keep track of data and stay organized
After each event, update the shared folder with:
Participant feedback and attendance numbers
Adjusted timelines or checklists based on lessons learned
Photos and promotional examples for future reference
Mandalas:
Handouts describing event
Comment cards
Pencils
Eco-Journals
Mini journals
glue/tape
Scissors
Construction paper
Nature magazines/catalogs
Pens/pencils/markers
Comment cards
Planting event
Succulents
Soil
Pots
Bowls (to put soil in)
Spoons (to scoop dirt)
IF INSIDE: trash bag to use as table tablecloth for easy clean up
Comment cards
Tree tour
Comment cards
Project Reflection
Project Reflection
Throughout the semester, our Ecotherapy experiences provided valuable insights and opportunities for growth. The first nature mandalas event served as a test run, highlighting the importance of adjusting the timing, location, and format to better serve the student body. Initially scheduled for Wednesday mornings, we learned that moving events to the afternoon and extending their duration made them more accessible to participants. Our collaboration with the Veggie and PERL organizations demonstrated the effectiveness of working with other campus groups to introduce students to Ecotherapy. Despite forgetting to print comment cards, this setback led to the creation of a Google form, which proved to be a more efficient method for collecting data during large events.
For the second Ecotherapy experience, we shifted the time to Friday afternoons from 1-3 pm, keeping the central Crim Dell Meadows location, which proved successful in attracting more students. Similarly, the tree tour benefited from using the Google form for data collection and interactive prompts that encouraged participants to engage with the trees, though a more detailed script and additional tree species would improve the experience. The free plant giveaway was another highlight, with the key lesson being the importance of having a backup location—though we were kicked out early due to an unconfirmed booking, the event was still a success.
Eco journaling sessions, also held in Crim Dell Meadows on Fridays, were well-received, with students reporting a calming effect. The main takeaway was the need for more scissors and glue, as many participants were eager to create journals at the same time. Lastly, the Earth Day showcase was a fantastic culmination of our efforts, where we used leftover materials from the plant giveaway for a mini planting event. While we could have improved the decorations, the event was a great success overall. The highlight of each of our events was being able to see and hear people’s enjoyment. Many of them had no clue what Ecotherapy was, and yet the effects of nature could be seen throughout the events as their demeanors would change from stressed to calm.
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