Students Take Deep-Dive into High Falls State Park Transformation

Students in Dr. Michael Boller’s Learning Community course, Rochester EcoSYSTEMS, are taking a deep-dive into the urban ecology of Rochester’s Genesee River.

Designed for first-year students at Fisher, the course explores Rochester, its parks, and how it all ties together through the Genesee River. The students are learning about how the ROC the Riverway initiative is helping to transform High Falls into a state park. Throughout the semester, students heard from guest speakers who talked about the multiyear process and development of the effort to bring a Rochester landmark into the state park system.

Beginning in 2018, New York recognized the benefit of developing the waterfront area in Rochester, creating the ROC the Riverway initiative. By 2020, after clean-up efforts to clear High Falls of pollution, the State announced the area would go under development to become a park.

“The reason why students are learning about High Falls is because this is an opportunity to learn how something big like this happens. This will be a major change in the course of the city of Rochester and New York State,” said Boller. “We have front-row seats to see it happen and have the opportunity to give input. You think of civic engagement, students are getting the opportunity to come up with ideas that could be physically manifested into the state park someday.”

Through the course, students will be tasked with developing proposals for ideas and projects around High Falls. Boller said this is an opportunity to help students understand that they have the agency to impact their community.

“ROC the Riverway has engaged with a lot of public input, and some things happen because of that public input,” said Boller. “One of those things includes an environmental education center or an urban ecology center in the state park plan.”

The idea for an educational center sprang from a group of professors and staff from different universities, Seneca Park Zoo Society, and other environmental organizations. At the beginning of ROC the Riverway, the concept was included under “future ideas” but has since been incorporated into the preliminary ideas for High Falls State Park.

Boller is trained as a marine ecologist, and when he arrived at Fisher, he leaned into aquatic ecology as his area of science to teach. He then got involved with the Genesee RiverWatch and was on the Board of Directors for a number of years. His role was to develop education projects for the organization. The water resources in Rochester have led Boller to start a nonprofit called Rochester Ecology Partners, which does a lot of nature-based learning with the Rochester City School District and community organizations.

“We have a vision of being part of an environmental education center through the High Falls State Park opportunity or something else to build places for people to come and learn about the environment, watershed, and the river,” Boller said. He also noted that the Rochester Ecology Partners have been in talks with High Falls State Park planners as the center takes shape.

Boller said he will continue to build these partnerships so that he can engage future Fisher students in the work for ROC the Riverway and the High Falls State Park effort.