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A Rocha Wheaton

Who We Are

A Rocha strives to create awareness of and opportunities for environmental stewardship and to encourage the active participation of its members in conservation efforts locally and globally. We emphasize the proclamation of Christian truth in conservation through cooperative, community-based efforts in local cultures.

Email us at wheatonarocha@gmail.com

A Rocha Community Garden

The Wheaton A Rocha Community Garden provides opportunities for building community and growing an understanding of the link between God’s provision and food production as well as offering fresh, local produce to Wheaton College and the surrounding community. The Wheaton A Rocha Community Garden was established during the 2010-2011 school year based on student initiative. During the first few years, A Rocha and the Wheaton grounds crew worked on the initial stages of the garden which consisted of installing terraces, spreading manure to improve the soil and planting cover crops.

The first year proved to be challenging, but A Rocha students continued to care for the garden and worked to improve the soil quality. In the Spring of 2013, seeds were planted and two Summer Caretakers were hired. Over the summer of 2013, Elsemarie DeVries and Thomas Leng led others in weeding, planting, and harvesting the garden, and Fall 2013 was the first harvest. The harvest included zucchini, summer squash, gourds, corn, green beans, acorn squash, beets and several herbs. Distribution of the produce was three-fold:

  • A Rocha donated food to Bon Appetit and those that worked in the garden
  • They sold food to the Wheaton College Community
  • Crops were donated to a local food pantry and church

The central location of the community garden on Wheaton’s campus has allowed for many students to get involved. There has been lots of enthusiasm, and many students not a part of the community garden committee or A Rocha have been involved in work days and purchasing produce from the garden. The community garden has helped the Wheaton Community connect to each other and the land. As the community garden was started in community, its goal is to continue to enrich our community.

Carbon Audit at Wheaton College

The structure of communities varies due to fragmentation, urbanization, pollution exposure, human use of community, and more. Tree diversity and biomass are important indicators of how a forest is working to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change. Carbon content of a forest is important in understanding predictions about climate change and impacts of resource use. Carbon storage for an area is calculated by measuring the sizes of trees, estimating biomasses based on their sizes, calculating carbon content of  the biomasses, and then adding up the carbon content for all the trees in the specified area (this is an underestimate, because this does not account for carbon storage in the soil and grass). Green spaces on college campuses may be a start to helping sequester carbon that is emitted from these communities.

On the campus of Wheaton College, the carbon storage by the trees in Blanchard lawn is calculated annually by A Rocha Wheaton College. This is done by measuring the diameter at Breast Height (dbh) for each tree, then finding biomass and estimated carbon storage for each tree and adding these values together. In 2025, Blanchard lawn had an estimate of 86141.78 kg/ha of carbon storage by trees. The estimated value for carbon stored by the trees in Blanchard lawn in 2026 was 97432.38 kg/ha. The sequestration (carbon stored in 2026 - that of 2025) is 11290.59 kg/ha. If Wheaton College emits the average amount of carbon that college campuses do a year— 52,434 metric tons of carbon—then the trees in Blanchard Lawn would be sequestering 0.02% of the carbon that Wheaton College emits. This value is an encouragement that trees and plants within communities do make some difference, and are important in mitigating climate change and carbon emissions.

Works Cited

  • Bonan, GB. 2008. Forests and climate change: forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. Science 320: 1444-1449.
  • McKinley, DC, MG Ryan, RA Birdsey, CP Giardina, ME Harmon, LS Heath, RA Houghton, RB Jackson, JF Morrison, BC Murray, DE Pataki, and KE Skog. 2011. A synthesis of current knowledge on forests and carbon storage in the United States. Ecological Applications 21:1902-1924.