IU Bloomington is renowned as one of the nation’s most beautiful campuses. A new student organization is working to make sure it stays that way for future generations.
Rewild IU grew out of Jon Eldon’s Terrestrial Habitat Analysis class, building on assigned campus assessment and restoration projects. Now, students are putting their coursework to use restoring natural areas of campus. From 1 to 4 p.m. on Friday, April 26, they’ll join IU’s Landscape Services team and Sustain IU to plant native grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, and trees east of Ballantine Hall to celebrate Arbor Day. Anyone in the IU community is welcome to pitch in.
Eldon is a lecturer in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the director of undergraduate studies for the B.A. in Environmental and Sustainability Studies through the Integrated Program in the Environment (IPE). As the hub for all environmental and sustainability-related programming on the Bloomington's campus, IPE connects students with the faculty, co-curricular opportunities, and degree programs that prepare them to face the world's complex environmental and sustainability challenges.
“That woodlot is highly visible and could become an attractive place to have lunch, relax, or literally stop and smell the flowers,” Eldon said. “This planting will change the future of that location.”
Ethan Iversen, an IU senior majoring in environmental management, was the teaching assistant for the class that inspired the group. Now, he’s the president of Rewild IU, helping the climate, biodiversity, and the Bloomington campus.
“Students often cite the beauty of ‘The Woodland Campus’ as their primary reason for attending IU. While popular locations such as Dunn Woods and Bryan Hollow are well known to students and faculty, the campus possesses extensive acreage of undeveloped natural areas, including woodlots, riparian corridors, and reconstructed wetlands,” Iversen said. “Unfortunately, invasive species, over-browsing, and a lack of management have negatively impacted natural areas on campus. We decided to create an organization that focuses specifically on managing and restoring the natural areas of campus. Rewild IU was founded out of need, but it’s a perfect fit for IU due to a historic emphasis on campus beautification and preservation of natural spaces.”
To that end, Rewild IU is working with Landscape Services and IU’s landscape architect, Mia Williams, on several restoration projects along the Campus River in the heart of the Bloomington campus, focusing on areas with high social and environmental value, Eldon said.
“Students in Rewild IU have an interest in doing things, not just learning and talking about doing things, and they’re looking for more education than can be found in a classroom,” Eldon said.
Iversen said his favorite project so far is the group’s ongoing restoration of IU’s Bottomlands, 5 acres located just south of the auditorium that consist of bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands in the Campus River’s floodplain. Rewild IU members have removed invasive shrubs in the understory and promoted native shrubs that were already there, such as buttonbush, elderberry, and nannyberry. Protecting and restoring this area encourages biodiversity through multiple habitats, including buttonbush swamps and diverse floodplain forests, as well as many tree species, such as red maple, black walnut, red oak, and the Kentucky coffeetree.
In their quest to restore Indiana’s ecosystems, Rewild IU members gain experience in land management. But the meaning of taking part in a group with a practical purpose and visible impact extends beyond typical extracurriculars.
“We removed invasive honeysuckle, privet, tree of heaven, and some young maple and ash trees to limit competition for the wetland plants we want to encourage. We spread seeds that we had collected from the education wetlands across campus,” said Rewild member Aida Niese, an IU senior majoring in environmental science and international studies. “The other day I was walking past this area and heard so many birds chattering over the wetland, and it felt really beautiful to know that we had made an effort to make that habitat more suitable for them and the other creatures living there.”
The planting on April 26 will take place rain or shine. Tools and light refreshments will be provided.
To get involved with Rewild IU, join the mailing list by sending an email to Rewildiu-l-subscribe@iu.edu.
IPE is jointly administered by the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, and the IU College of Arts and Sciences.
