WCU Stories      December 4, 2024

By Cam Adams

Amy Fagan, an associate professor in Western Carolina University’s Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources, knows she’s a bit of a space addict.

Her office is adorned with figurines of astronauts, patches from the Apollo missions and a poster signed by Apollo 16 astronaut, Charles Duke. So when a tree grown from a seed that was on the Artemis I mission arrived on campus, Fagan was over the moon.

“My students got to see me just totally giddy, excited, kid on Christmas morning when that tree arrived in the box, which was probably good to see their faculty get that excited about something,” Fagan said.

Fagan was a key player in getting the coveted “Moon Tree” to WCU, as the university’s application was accepted by NASA earlier this semester. The American sweetgum tree was planted near the main entrance of campus.

NASA, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, has helped distribute Moon Trees to schools, museums, libraries and other places across the country, starting this past spring.

This isn’t the first time seeds that orbited the moon have been grown on earth, as the Apollo 14 crew flew seeds with them on their mission. Those Moon Trees were also planted all over, including the Botanical Gardens at Asheville.

As part of the application process, Fagan highlighted how the tree would be used as an educational tool and how it would benefit the region.

“We are the stewards of this little visitor from outer space who’s going to hang out with us for the next however many years and maybe someday have baby Moon Trees if we can germinate those,” Fagan said.

“But yeah, I feel very honored that we were selected and that our department is going to be the caretakers.”

And that provides some educational opportunities for the department’s students with many of them interested in forestry and dendrology.

“I think it’s a nice educational tool,” Fagan said. “As the tree gets older, we have some ideas of how we can expand opportunities with the tree, but it’s going to probably take a few years before it’s big enough for us to do some of them."

Fagan hopes a ceremony will be held for the Moon Tree in the spring.