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See how our current work and research is bringing new thinking and new solutions to some of today's biggest challenges.

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By Krisy Gashler
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  • Campus Area Farms
  • Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
  • Dilmun Hill Student Farm
  • Farm Services & Compost Facility
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
Cornell AES manages nine research farms and 127,000 square feet of greenhouse space on Ithaca’s campus and across New York state. While these facilities are designed to support research, they are also used as unique teaching tools for two dozen courses covering topics in plant science, soil science, entomology, food systems, agricultural machinery, and more. This is the third story in a series about on-farm teaching.

Emily McFadden ’25 has always wanted a career in agriculture and the environment. When she toured Cornell as a high school student, she sat in on a soil science course (PLSCS 2600) taught by Jonathan Russell-Anelli, senior lecturer and senior extension associate in the School of Integrative Plant Science’s Soil and Crop Sciences Section. 

“Because of this class, I pursued a soils minor – it definitely made me a little bit of a nerd for soil types,” said McFadden, a plant sciences major. “The lecture is very important and gives you context, but what you’re doing in the field and in the lab is really hands-on and you wouldn’t be able to wrap your head around everything you learn in class without getting your hands into the soil in the fields. I think CALS across the board does a great job with giving us opportunities to get out of the classroom and into the labs and farms.” 

Russell-Anelli’s course, which he’s been teaching for 20 years, lays a scientific groundwork for students in traditional agronomic fields, like plant and agricultural sciences, as well as students interested in civil and environmental engineering, city and regional planning, global development, sociology, geology and more. The course’s weekly labs rely heavily on research farms, greenhouses and other facilities on and off campus. The Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell AES) maintains many of those facilities, primarily for the purpose of research. But increasingly, they are serving dual purposes as teaching resources. 

“In the 20 years I’ve been teaching at Cornell, faculty have always gone out to farms. And we’re still going out to farms, but now we’re also going to the waste treatment facility, the compost facility, the greenhouses, and we’re going to these places for teaching and learning, not just for research,” he said. “These facilities have enabled us to do so much more with our teaching.”

For example, Russell-Anelli’s class visits Cornell’s Compost Facility managed by the Farm Services team, which collects compostable waste from the university’s dining halls, farms and grounds, and turns it into a high-quality soil amendment. They learn about how compost is made, and assess compost at different stages of decomposition, based on measurements like temperature, appearance and smell.

“They love this one because I have them put compost in a five-gallon bucket and use the bucket as a wine glass – they put their nose into it, and assess the bouquet of compost,” he said. 

Afterward, students take samples back to the plant science greenhouses to make lab-based assessments, and then they grow cucumbers in the various stages of compost. 

Julianna Rose ’26, became interested in agriculture through her high school’s hydroponics club. Now a plant sciences major, Rose is pursuing a career in sustainable plant production or potentially astrobotany. 

Visiting so many facilities as part of the soil science course broadened her perspective of the possibilities that exist in plant sciences, she said. 

“It was really helpful to see a variety of different research facilities where they were doing plant science work and soil science work, just to broaden my understanding of what this field really is, and how to get involved with research in those fields,” Rose said. “I didn’t grow up on a farm, and most of my experience with plant science was in hydroponics, so I really enjoyed learning about how complex the soil system really is.” 

Sadie Cooper ’26, is double-majoring in agricultural sciences and plant sciences, and hopes to pursue graduate school in plant breeding and genetics. One of her favorite lab excursions was to the Dilmun Hill Student Farm. The class learned about old lead and arsenic contamination in the farm’s soil – a common problem as many farms and orchards used lead arsenate as a pesticide in the last century – and the mitigation strategies student-farmers had to undertake to combat it. The class took soil core samples from around the farm and then measured compaction and water content.

“A lot of the mitigation strategies they needed to use had adverse effects on soil compaction,” Cooper said. “Professor Russell-Anelli really emphasized how all these aspects of soil we were learning about were all connected, and changes in one thing impact many other things. Seeing that for myself with the soil samples from Dilmun really brought that lesson to life.”

Jake Zajkowski ‘26 began working in farming and greenhouse production when he was 11, and he hopes to own his own farm someday. An agricultural sciences major with a geologist father, Zajkowski said the course helped further his understanding of how important soils are, for food systems but also for climate mitigation.

“There’s a big movement toward soil health for crop productivity, but soils are also important for geologists, they’re important for carbon capture, especially with composting, soils are important for people in urban settings,” he said. “Soil isn’t just about agronomy or crop production – it matters for everyone.”
 

Krisy Gashler is a freelance writer for the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell AES). 

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