Starting in the Fall of my senior year, I joined Jason Hamilton's research team with a focus on medicinal plants and white pine tree research.  ​

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Medicinal Plants

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​Working with the Permaculture Garden to uncover the medicinal properties of all the plants in the garden.  The medicinal plant information will be added to the Permaculture Garden's website in the near future.  In addition, a pamphlet will be created with the current information for education purposes.

I spent creating personal products such as teas, tinctures, decoctions, and herbal shampoo. As a result of previous aspirations and this research, I decided to apply to apprentice at a local herbalism school - Heartstone Herbalism School.

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Kombucha​

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Another project I worked on is experimenting with making kombucha.  After 8 months of experimenting, I created a kombucha manual -- 30 pages long -- which will be added to the Environmental Studies & Science dept. website.

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White Pine

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The final component of my research is in on White Pine Trees.  Thus far, I have only begun preliminary reading ensuring I understand the ecological, folklore, and medicinal components surrounding this magnificent tree.  As this research will continue the rest of senior year, in early winter I made pine sap tincture, pine needle tincture, pine needle tea, pine needle vinegar infusion and pine bark baskets.  In the future I would love to make a pine sap salve with local beeswax.