{"id":1171,"date":"2026-04-22T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:45:00","slug":"peel4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/2026\/04\/22\/peel4\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wood Wide Web"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mairead Peel<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

Instructor’s Introduction<\/h4>\n

Mairead Peel\u2019s final multimodal project in WR 152: American Environmental History, sparkles with joy as well as with empirical wisdom. Her investigation of the \u201cWood Wide Web\u201d celebrates a reimagined relationship with and understanding of the natural world.\u00a0 She was captivated by Suzanne Simard\u2019s groundbreaking work with fungal networks and with \u201cMother Trees,\u201d the stars of Simard\u2019s eponymous text about the interrelationships among trees and the mycorrhizal networks that, in Mairead\u2019s words, \u201cconnect trees in vast, cooperative systems.\u201d Mairead points out that the model of competition by individuals for resources simply is a misperception of the ways that these networks operate.\u00a0 And Mairead, herself, lived out that collaborative and cooperative approach in her kindness to her peers, her engagement in discussions that nurtured everyone, and her development of her interest in environmental history by branching out through Directed Readings in addition to our course work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her multimodal presentation, housed as a website, is stunning and visually gorgeous.\u00a0 The structure of her argument, building on the Anatomy of Introductions, offers a model for other students to develop their conceptual problems and their claims.\u00a0 Mairead is sharing her approaches here just like Suzanne Simard\u2019s old growth forests offer nutrients to their kin and their network.<\/span><\/p>\n

And her essay simply is worth reading because it is so well-constructed and so well-written with empathy deep as tree roots. Mairead writes, <\/span>\u201cI think, therefore I am\u201d separated mind from body, and humans from nature. In this worldview, forests are just timber, soil is just dirt, and fungi? Just rot. This logic seeped into American environmental policy and capitalist development, where land was something to own, extract from, and manage and definitely not something to learn from. It\u2019s no coincidence that environmental degradation accelerated under a framework that framed humans as masters of a passive, mechanical world (Merchant 5). But if mycorrhizal networks teach us anything, it\u2019s that this framework is wrong. We are not outside nature looking in, we are inside it, threaded into its systems and that shift from dominance to participation.<\/p>\n

I commend Mairead\u2019s delightful project to you!<\/span><\/p>\n

Ted Fitts<\/span><\/h6>\n
\n

From the Writer<\/h3>\n

We\u2019re living in a moment shaped by climate crisis, environmental loss, and growing social disconnection. Fires, rising temperatures, and instability are no longer distant problems, but part of everyday life. We\u2019ve built systems that prioritize efficiency over relationships, and now we\u2019re facing the consequences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This paper sits in that urgency, asking what if intelligence, connection, and empathy are not just human traits, but part of all living systems. Looking at fungal networks and forests, it challenges the idea that life is driven by competition and instead points toward cooperation.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not abstract. As the line between humans and nature continues to break down, it becomes harder to ignore how deeply connected we actually are. To rethink forests is, in many ways, to rethink ourselves, and to recognize that connection is not optional, but necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Wood Wide Web (Website)<\/h3>\n

The Wood Wide Web<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Mairead Peel<\/strong> is a computer engineering student who\u2019s just as comfortable writing code as she is being outside. She spends a lot of her time hiking with her dog, Eddy, and staying connected to nature. Her interests sit between technology and the environment, and she\u2019s especially interested in how those two worlds can work together instead of against each other. A lot of that thinking was shaped in her WR 120 and 152 classes, where she was pushed to slow down, question things more deeply, and actually engage with ideas instead of just getting through them. She\u2019d like to thank her professor, Ted Fitts, for constantly challenging her and helping her grow as a thinker and writer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mairead Peel Instructor’s Introduction Mairead Peel\u2019s final multimodal project in WR 152: American Environmental History, sparkles with joy as well as with empirical wisdom. Her investigation of the \u201cWood Wide Web\u201d celebrates a reimagined relationship with and understanding of the natural world.\u00a0 She was captivated by Suzanne Simard\u2019s groundbreaking work with fungal networks and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,5],"tags":[22,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/deerfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}