When imagining the Lewis & Clark campus, it is hard to picture it without a plethora of moss growing on trees, rocks, buildings and just about any other permanent object. As a community, we do not just appreciate it when walking around, we also celebrate it during one of the most beloved weeks of the school year: Moss Appreciation Week. This year marks the seventh annual Moss Appreciation Week hosted by the Natural History Club and just like previous years, it was an exciting and educational event. The celebratory week has grown to attract attention from a number of media outlets across the country, including NPR.
Moss Appreciation Week 2025 took place between Monday, Feb. 10 and Friday, Feb. 14 — a fitting time to spread the love of moss. The events of the week are meant to teach the community about the importance of the organism and cultivate gratitude for it through hands-on experiences, student research presentations and a keynote speaker. Most events took place in Watzek, giving people an easy way to access the celebration.
One well-loved part of the week is the moss petting zoo in the atrium of Watzek which featured a variety of different moss samples visitors could examine. The table attracted many students, who stopped by to pet, inspect and smell the moss. They could also take some of Moss Week home with stickers featuring student-made moss artwork and bookmarks with student-written moss poems. I was fascinated by the wide variety of moss species and their different growing conditions. The petting zoo included information about where each type of moss can be found, causing one to ponder about where they may have seen those mosses before.
This sentiment is shared by one of the week’s organizers, Soff Olmedo ’28, whose interest in natural history and biology inspired him to help lead the event. He has enjoyed learning about the broad biodiversity of moss, which has enhanced his experience on campus.
“Different species can coexist so close together at the same time. When you walk around campus, you don’t just see one species of moss, there are so many and they’re just next to each other,” Olmedo said.
Olmedo also wanted to showcase the diversity of students through Moss Week so he helped organize the EAR Forest installation. The exhibit played recordings throughout the week of people saying moss in different languages, showing the many languages and countries represented at LC. The opening of the project helped kick off the week in a spirited way, with students adorned in elaborate moss costumes and the sun shining down on the fuzzy greenery.
Part of appreciating moss is learning about its hidden nature and function in our world. On Tuesday, a station in the library offered microscopes for students to admire moss samples and discover the intricate world invisible to our eyes. I was amazed when I saw the moss up close — it was brighter than I imagined and incredibly detailed. I learned about the small mites and other microorganisms that live all around us and make our environment what it is, but that we may never even consider.
Student organizers felt the same passion for revealing the secrets of moss. Kenji Yamamoto ’26 is the vice president of the Natural History Club and was grateful for the opportunity to learn more about moss by helping to organize the event. They want the community to slow down and gain an understanding of things often unnoticed.
“I think Moss Week focuses very much on the underdogs of nature and things getting overlooked. It is a week where we can just spend time slowing down to the pace of ‘moss time,’ as I like to call it,” Yamamoto said.
Many other LC students feel the same way, as they showed on Wednesday at the Mossmates Meet-and-Greet where they presented their independent research as part of the Natural History Practicum. Students eagerly displayed bugs, moss and fungi from areas they have been researching. Many of their projects focus on revealing unstudied aspects of the environment. The event felt like a small, student-curated science museum and I was fascinated and inspired by my peers’ work. Yamamoto noted student interest in local ecology as an important part of the week.
“This is mostly very student driven. These are just people who are really passionate about natural history, and specifically, the natural history here in the Pacific Northwest,” Yamamoto said.
Dr. Jesse Miller, the lead botanist of the Washington Natural Heritage Program came in to lead a walk and give the keynote lecture on Wednesday. Organizing these events with Miller was one of the biggest parts of the planning process for Yamamoto. They were interested in Miller’s work with local lichen diversity and how it has been affected by climate change. Both Yamamoto and Olmedo were mesmerized by the walk around campus. On the walk, Miller explained that lichen is a bioindicator of air quality, since certain species need different air conditions to grow.
“It’s really interesting to just visualize and walk around campus and be like ‘Oh, so different parts of campus have different types of air quality,’ and when that goes to a bigger scale of the Pacific Northwest, you can really visualize where pollutants are in our world,” Yamamoto said.
For students unable to attend these events or who are more interested in artistic expression, Olmedo helped organize a station for students to create and send mossy Valentines to their loved ones and share the beauty of moss through drawing. Olmedo was happy that these activities were so well received, especially since other events, like a movie night, unfortunately had to be canceled due to a snowstorm on Thursday and Friday.
Despite this misfortune, Yamamoto and Olmedo felt that Moss Appreciation Week helped students understand the organism better and gain greater appreciation of nature. Olmedo was able to appreciate the beauty of campus and Oregon more and hoped other students did the same.
“My goal for the event is to bring awareness to what we have on campus and the beauty on campus, but also to recognize the species that could be endangered in moss and lichen … to recognize what we’ve got and take care of it,” Olmedo said.
Yamamoto thinks the event shows the culture of LC and is grateful for all of the engagement students showed during the week.
“Over the past few years, Moss Week has become a bigger tradition and I think that it is such a nerdy, very localized thing. I think that represents Lewis & Clark, that thing can also be really joyous and cool,” Yamamoto said. “I’ve really enjoyed seeing the passion that people have during Moss Week, I was really blown away by how many people were so engaged.”
Even though Moss Week may be over until next year, remember to keep appreciating the natural beauty around us and slow down to “moss time” when you can.
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