By Rose Schnabel (’24)

Fall 2023 will bring the 8th edition of Dr. Heather Reynolds’ course: Biodiverse-City! The Art & Science of Green Infrastructure. Students in the course will learn about human/ecosystem interactions in urban areas and work with one of seven Bloomington partners to make the city more sustainable.

In Dr. Reynolds’ Biodiverse-City course, your assignments may range from fieldwork on Kirkwood Avenue in downtown Bloomington one week, to a meeting with the urban forester at the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation the next. For Reynolds, getting out of the classroom is an essential part of learning about ecosystems and biodiversity. She’s taught the course for seven years and has always prioritized field work and community engagement as well as weekly student-led discussions of scientific literature.

Officially, BIOL-L326 Biodiverse-City is an upper-level Biology elective. Students from any major are encouraged to participate, though, as the only prerequisite is a 100-level Biology or Environmental Sciences course. In the past, students studying Geography, Interior Design, Psychology, and Sustainability Studies, among other majors, have all succeeded in the course. 

The idea for the course came from one of Reynolds’ previous classes: The City as Ecosystem, which had one unit devoted to biodiversity and urban ecosystem functioning. Student feedback consistently pointed to this unit as the most engaging and impactful. 

At the same time, Reynolds found her work as a plant ecologist continuously building more connections with the social sciences. Social systems and ecological systems are deeply intertwined in urban areas, making cities “a really critical place to get the ecology right,” said Reynolds. At first glance, curbside native plantings, street tree coverage, and greenways may not seem to have an impact on your daily life, but they influence mental and physical health, how hot it gets in the summer, and who can walk to work or school. 

For Reynolds, Biodiverse-City is about “teaching ecology in a context that students can relate to.” To do this, she divides the course into three sections: biodiversity and ecosystems, ecosystem services, and green infrastructure, putting each of these topics into an urban context. In the first section, students learn about how ecosystems are structured, what they do, and key roles of biodiversity. In the second, they explore the regulating, provisioning, supporting, and cultural services that biodiverse ecosystems provide to their communities. The final section explores urban infrastructure and how urban ecosystems help to make cities more sustainable and resilient.

The most unique feature of Reynolds’ course is its engaged learning aspect. That is, it’s one thing to memorize a diagram of ecosystem services from a biology textbook but another thing entirely to see those services at play in your community. Reynolds partners with seven Bloomington-area organizations that relate to ecosystems and biodiversity in some way, among them: Monroe County Identify and Reduce Invasive Species, the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation’s forestry, preserves, and urban greenspace units, and more. 

 

Students are matched with an organization that catches their eye. Their work with the organization has two parts. The first consists of five hours of direct service helping to maintain urban greenspaces by planting native species, removing invasive ones, and other hands-on activities. The second is an in-depth project, conducted in teams of four, which supports the organization’s goals to educate the Bloomington community about urban greenspaces and their benefits. Past projects include videos, virtual tours, various social media posts, signage, brochures, and children’s learn-play activities. Representatives from each organization come into the classroom three times throughout the semester to build connections with their student team and give feedback on the project’s development.

“What’s great is that students get to work in the real world with people on the ground, applying the concepts from the course on a day-to-day basis to make cities more resilient,” said Reynolds. The two-part structure maximizes the course’s benefit to both students and organizations. Direct service enables students to immerse in nature and learn about the daily operations of an urban environmental organization while helping organizations get essential tasks done. The project-based service challenges students intellectually and creatively, promoting deep learning of course concepts and skills while generating products that help organizations meet community outreach goals. 

The semester wraps up with a final exhibition of each group’s project at the Monroe County Public Library with community members, faculty, and organizational staff all in attendance. It’s a chance for every student to reflect on the impact they’ve made on the Bloomington community and ecosystem. But, for many students, connections with the community organizations don’t end there. Students have gone on to be interns with the IU Research and Teaching Preserve, to become volunteers with Monroe County Identify and Reduce Invasive species, and to apply for internships with the City of Bloomington government. 

All students in the course, from aspiring ecologists to history majors looking to diversify their studies, are sure to walk away with unique and specialized skills to create more sustainable and resilient ecosystems in their very own communities.