Roots and Shoots is an organization that’s all about creating positive change for the community, animals and environment. The club focuses on conservation as well as environmental and humanitarian issues in the local community and at the global level.
Wren Fowler, president of the NC State chapter of Roots and Shoots and a senior studying plant biology, talks about what the club is like and describes the services it offers to the community and its members.
“It was founded by Jane Goodall, and it was supposed to be a global organization,” Fowler said. “The idea behind it is that you get the kids by their roots until they grow up to shoots to make the kids more aware of humanitarianism, environmentalism and conservation. When it was founded, it was actually focused on animal conservation, and since then, it’s really evolved to be general conservation.”
Members of Roots and Shoots get involved in volunteer work like cleaning up the local Eno River, helping in Service Raleigh and doing trail cleanup, according to Fowler. The club also volunteers at the Wedge Community Garden where you can get together with the whole community and also harvest whatever you grow.
Kalysha Clark, a graduate student studying fisheries and wildlife sciences, said the club provided her with opportunities to get hands-on experience and knowledge in the field of wildlife conservation.
“We had a wonderful service day where we tracked box turtles with the turtle dogs, we got a special tour of the Nature Research Center downtown and got to watch awesome, informative documentaries,” Clark said. “Ultimately, my involvement in the club showed me that I truly loved wildlife conservation research and redirected my career goals away from vet school to where I am now.”
Roots and Shoots cares about educating people on the current issues in the field of wildlife conservation and human-animal interactions, as well as equipping them with the tools they need to solve these problems, according to Clark. One of the ways that the club raises awareness is through speakers.
“I think our biggest thing we do around campus is with faculty,” Fowler said. “A lot of our faculty may be focused on ecology research but then have a huge conservation background that people don’t really realize, so it’s this promoting of their research that’s how we have our speakers come in. They’re mostly from NC State or the surrounding communities. We really try to reach out to the Natural Science Museum. We always have speakers coming from there.”
The club emphasizes the importance of having speakers come in from different places to raise awareness about themselves, according to Fowler. Club members can not only hear the speakers’ stories, but also spread the word about what they’re doing and how the members can help.
“The goal right now is to spread awareness and hope that people take their own initiative because it is such a diverse group of students, and if we do focus in on one thing, I feel like it will lose some of its diversity,” Fowler said.
The club members come from various majors including engineering, business and plant biology, according to Fowler. The people within Roots and Shoots are diverse, and they all share the same conservationist goal.
“This club is great for people who care about wildlife and the future of wildlife,” Clark said. “We had lots of members from engineering and accounting, for example. Roots and Shoots members can participate in service events like lake cleanups, community garden days and visits to local wildlife-related organizations, such as the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the Duke Lemur Center and the Carolina Tiger Rescue.”
Roots and Shoots is always open to new members and offers the opportunity to build friendships with people who share an interest in wildlife.
“When I joined as a second-semester freshman, I was looking for something to get involved with to make friends,” Clark said. “I turned out getting so much more out of it than just new friends.”
Students who are interested in joining Roots and Shoots can come to meetings or email the club at [email protected]. Meetings are usually every other Thursday at 7 p.m. at David Clark Labs.
