College of the Atlantic student Sage Fuller ’22 on top of “Mount COA,” a pile dirt from the...College of the Atlantic student Sage Fuller ’22 on top of “Mount COA,” a pile dirt from the college's north lawn, which was dug up to construct the new Center of Human Ecology building.

According to Millard Dority, director of campus planning, the mound of dirt was dug up from the north lawn on campus in the construction process for the new Center for Human Ecology.

“Usually in most construction projects, we would have it hauled off campus,” Dority said of the dirt. But due to the presence of red ants on campus, the planning and building committee decided to leave the dirt onsite.

As crews piled up rich dirt and loam on a field near the dormitories last summer, plants began to sprout.

This fall, the prevalence of plants caught the interest of Professor Suzanne Morse and students in her class on weed ecology, who had been collecting weed samples across campus for identification.

The huge dirt pile, dubbed “Mount COA” or the “COA hill,” became their new study site, according to Sage Fuller, a student in Morse’s class.

“It’s a totally interesting space because it’s just left to its own devices,” said Fuller. “It shows how spaces can grow if you just leave them alone. In a lot of other colleges, this would never happen.”

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