Last week I had the privilege of attending a two-day meeting at the Field Museum’s Biodiversity Synthesis Center (BioSynC) hosted by museum botanist and early land plants collections manager Matt von Konrat. I joined faculty and students from several Chicago colleges and universities to discuss how to develop college curriculum for the taxonomic study of the liverwort genus, Frullania, one of many under-studied yet incredibly important bryophytes that are the oldest type of land plants and key bio-indicators of environmental degradation and climate change.
Faculty and students convene at the Aug 29 and 30 biodiversity research and curriculum workshop held in the FMNH’s BioSynC center (photo: K. Lugo)
With the rise of molecular genetics and related disciplines since the 1950s, biology as a whole has seen a massive shift away from the traditional natural history-based disciplines of comparative anatomy and taxonomy, pursuits rooted in the 18th- and 19th-century study of nature. Yet the imperative to catalog and assess the world’s remaining biodiversity in our current age of mass extinction, a process largely driven by human action, means that current taxonomists working in museum collections and the field have a critical task ahead of them. The NSF-funded Connecting Biodiversity Research with Curriculum project spearheaded by the Field Museum’s Konrat and his colleagues is a creative way to involve students and non-scientists in the essential data collection and analysis work vital to cataloguing bryophyte species, re-assessing their place on the tree of life, and providing a model for similar work for other organisms.
Last month I was invited to participate in a brainstorming session at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago about kids and environmental science. The event brought together educators, environmental professionals of various stripes, and students to discuss how to make environmental science more accessible and relevant to minority boys and girls, particularly kids in the Chicago Public School system. The organization responsible for this effort is Project Exploration, a non-profit dedicated to increasing female and minority participation in science early on in the educational pipeline: specifically, in junior high and, to a lesser extent, high school.
Jameela Jafri was the dynamo behind this convening, at which I met many exciting and impressive people from all corners of Chicago. Check out her blog post about the event here, and visit to the Project Exploration website to learn more about the amazing stuff they do.
This past Saturday, I attended GR2012, the 3rd annual Celebrating Sustainability festival in my hometown of Joliet, IL. The past couple of years I had attended with my family purely in the role of visitors to the festival’s original location at the Joliet Public Library / Rock Run Forest Preserve. We checked out the many green products and services among the many exhibits, played games, petted a menagerie of animals, and listened to live music.
RU students (Stephanie and Sean) hobnob with JJC students and alumni (Tiffany, Tori, and Antonio)
But the festival outgrew its site in only two years, so this year’s organizers moved it to more spacious grounds: the West Side campus of Joliet Junior College, which has a beautiful new student center as well as a picnic area near the site of a significant prairie restoration underway at the nation’s oldest community college. And this time, I came as a participant: along with SUST majors Sean Hattan and Stephanie Eisner, I ran an informational table among the dozens of exhibitors at GR2012 to meet and greet visitors and prospective students. And I gave a slideshow presentation entitled Sustainability in the Suburbs – GR2012 19 May 2012 (pdf) during the day’s program of public lectures.
For more on the day’s proceedings, check out this post on the Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future blog.
Last Wednesday, May 2nd, was a bittersweet day in my SUST 350 Service & Sustainability class at RU. Since March 21st we had convened every Wednesday afternoon at 3pm at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago. For our first hour we’d discuss the week’s readings and then have student-led “farm reports” on urban agricultural operations across the US. Then we’d put away our books and grab some tools to work from 4-5:30pm doing whatever farm chores needed doing that day. During this latter part of our class sessions, we labored side by side with several Growing Power staff and the neighborhood teens who work as Youth Corps job interns here during the school year and summer.
Front, L to R: Maria, Beeka, Allison, Natasha. 2nd row: Brian, Lauralyn, Mary, Alex, Eleanor, Josh, Steph,Toni. Back row: Terry, Joe, Sean, Steven, Conor, Martinez, Jonathan. Not pictured from RU: Keith and Mike (Photo by M. Bryson)
In the process we began to get the rudiments of a working knowledge of the half-acre urban farm here at the corner of Hudson Street and Chicago Avenue in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that is still home to many poor and working-class citizens, despite the demolition of most of the Cabrini-Green public housing in the area. (The original Cabrini rowhouses remain just to the north of the farm, though their fate is uncertain.) We learned how to turn over and then utilize compost; appreciated the basic mechanisms of vermicomposting (using worms to break down organic waste and produce nutrient-rich soil consisting of worm castings); mastered the art of handling a power drill; and depended upon the value of teamwork when it comes to weeding, hoeing, raking, shoveling and hauling wood chips, repairing compost bins, and picking up litter.
The Compost Crew (for that day, anyway) — L to R: Josh, Sean, Mike, and Joe (photo by A. Mayes)
The past couple of weeks, workers at the farm (including us) have been chipping away at a major construction project: a new hoop house to accompany the one now standing near the middle of the farm property.
Last week we made major strides toward that goal, as we helped finish the wooden foundation/frame of the structure and secured it to the ground. Some of us put together lengths of strong but lightweight aluminum poles (itself a simple yet tricky process to get right without injuring a finger), then cut them to length.
Brian Ellis, one of Growing Power’s urban farmers and a super-cool guy. Stick with this man and you’ll learn stuff!Maria, Conor, and Lauralyn secure the two pieces of aluminium pipe for each of the hoops. This is tricky work getting those self-tapping metal screws into a rounded surface cleanly and securely! (photo by A. Mayes)L to R: Alex, Brian, Eleanor, Lauralyn, Monique, Mike (in background), Terry, Conor, and Steven. You can see here how the pole comes out bent from the jig. (Photo by A. Mayes)
Finally, in the waning minutes of our semester in the late afternoon, we bent two of the poles using a special wooden jig in a well-choreographed ballet of pushing and steadying, and then mounted one of the hoops at the west end of the house. A great cheer went up when this happened, and I felt it a fitting moment on which to conclude our semester: for even as we enjoyed this sense of accomplishment, we knew that the job was far from done. As we said our goodbyes and dispersed in separate directions back to school or home, our Growing Power Youth Corps compatriots at the farm began taking over right where we left off.
Looking west at the site of the new hoop house, as we set the first pole. This is a fitting coda for our semester, suggesting future journeys and work yet to be completed. There’s something wonderful about making an arch at an urban farm in the middle of Chicago — the great 19th century urban center of what was then called the West, according to environmental historian William Cronon in his 1991 book “Nature’s Metropolis.” (Photo by A. Mayes)
That’s yet another great thing about this service learning experience: it doesn’t end here, even though our spring semester is nearly over. The Chicago Lights Urban Farm welcomes volunteers every Saturday from 10am to 4pm, and I know many of us will return to this friendly and welcoming spot to do some more work with our new friends. As for me, I’m already looking forward to setting up v2 of this course next spring, for it’s the hope of the Sustainability Studies program at Roosevelt to cultivate a long-term relationship with the Chicago Lights and Iron Street urban farms here in the City of Big Shoulders — now one of the great urban agricultural frontiers of North America.
Special thanks go to many people, including:
Natasha Holbert, director of the Chicago Lights Urban Farm, who was instrumental in the planning for SUST 350, and who provided valuable insights and enthusiastic guidance to us every step of the way;
Lauralyn Clausen (Education and Curriculum Coordinator and Youth Corps Co-Instructor) Brian Ellis (Youth Corps Co-Instructor), Malcolm Evans (Farm Assistant), and Laurel Simms (Chicago Production/Marketing Manager and Farm Educator) — the Growing Power urban farmers in Chicago who led our daily work sessions, imparted their knowledge, and made us feel welcome from the get-go;
The Youth Corps job interns (Deja, Henry, Ivory, Jonathan, Kyra, Monique, Quentin, Rayshard, Rayshaun, Sam, and Toni) with whom we worked, joked, and took some cool field trips to Milwaukee and the Chicago River;
Amy, our phenomenal tour guide at Growing Power’s Milwaukee farm site;
Erika Allen, director of Growing Power’s Chicago operations across the city and National Outreach Manager, whose visionary leadership is helping make Chicago a greener and healthier city;
The faculty and staff of Roosevelt University’s Mansfield Institute, who supported this course will a Transformational Service Learning grant;
And last but not least, my students who were curious enough to sign up for the inaugural section of this class, who worked hard inside and outside of the classroom from Week one through fourteen, and who had no problem handling worms or getting dirty (in fact, I think they rather enjoyed it!)
Here’s to a splendid growing season this summer and a record-breaking harvest next fall!
For an up-close look at our last workday at the farm this spring, check out this online photo album of our last workday (pictures by SUST major Allison Mayes and yours truly).
This past Sunday, 29 April 2012, students from my SUST 350 Service & Sustainability class joined staff and student interns from Growing Power‘s Chicago Lights Urban Farm for a canoe trip on Bubbly Creek, aka the South Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River. This was the second of two field trip experiences for RU undergrads and Growing Power Youth Corps job interns who have been working together in the Spring of 2012 at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm. (The first was a road trip to Growing Power’s original farm site on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side.)
Paddling south on Bubbly Creek (M. Bryson)
Led by Friends of the Chicago River, this outdoor adventure introduced RU undergrads and Cabrini-Green teens and young adults to river ecology, wastewater policy, Chicago history, and urban biodiversity — not to mention the no-less-important skills of teamwork and good paddling technique. Most of the day’s participants had limited to no canoeing experience prior to our adventure; but they learned quickly with the help of a pre-launch paddling lesson by our Friends of the Chicago River guides, and by the end of our 2.5 mile journey had proven themselves adept at handling a canoe on one of America’s most infamous urban waterways. Talk about baptism by fire . . . er, wastewater effluent!
This industrialized and heavily polluted channel on Chicago’s South Side got its name years ago from the methane gas that bubbled up from the bacterial decomposition of organic waste on the creek’s bottom. Bubbly Creek was the notorious dumping ground for the Chicago Stockyards for decades. Things were so bad in 1909 that a chicken was photographed walking across the sludgy surface of the river.
Paddling south on Bubbly Creek; to the right (west) are 34th Street and the Iron Street Farm (M. Bryson)
The South Fork’s revolting environmental history inspired me to take urban sustainability seminar students to the waterway as our capstone field trip back in May of 2009 — and I’ve been canoeing Bubbly Creek with my students ever since.
The mild spring weather, sluggish current, and lack of boat traffic made for exceptional paddling down the one-and-a-quarter-mile length of Bubbly Creek this past Sunday. Our view was one of arresting images and stark contrasts. Along some stretches, vegetation reclaimed the industrial riverbank. Elsewhere, pipes stuck out from concrete or steel embankments, water from area street-level drains trickling from their openings — a hint of the deluge that would ensue were it to rain. We floated slowly and quietly under massive railroad and highway bridges, the dim roar of traffic far above us.
Near the headwaters of Bubbly Creek; on our right is the massive Racine Avenue Pumping Station. Each of its eight pipes is 5 feet in diameter. This station pumps wastewater from this area of Chicago southwest to the MWRD's Stickney wastewater treatment plant -- the largest such facility in the world. In times of significant rainfall, these pumps reverse and pump untreated combined sewage into Bubbly Creek, where the water levels quickly rise three feet. (M. Bryson)
Visible evidence of pollution was everywhere — old plastic garbage bags hanging from trees; floating bottles and cans; the occasional used condom (nicknamed “Chicago River Whitefish” by jaded river veterans); and the infamous bubbles, still percolating up from the murky depths. At times the faint stench of sewage drifted over us.
Yet, we also saw encountered wildlife, including Canada geese, Mallard ducks, a juvenile red-tailed hawk, and a green heron (one of the three heron species native to Illinois). Tree swallows swooped over the water, hunting for insects, and red-winged blackbirds and white-throated sparrows sang lustily from the brush riverbanks. Although we didn’t see any that day, beavers are known to be active along the creek, despite its persistent pollution. Such observations provided a dramatic ecology lesson: while Bubbly Creek is still in rough shape, it has come a long way from its earlier environmental desecration.
A significant moments of our trip occurred as we paddled southward along an imposing, rusted metal retaining wall on the east bank of the river; to the west was a more vegetated riparian zone that ended at a chain link fence.
Malcolm, a longtime Growing Power Youth Corps intern on his first canoeing adventure, points to the Iron Street Farm with his paddle (M. Bryson)
The view itself was unremarkable, save for the fact that we knew what was on the other side of that fence, mostly hidden from view on the high bank: the Iron Street Farm, one of Growing Power’s urban farming operations in Chicago that occupies several acres of former industrial land just west of Bubbly Creek at the intersection of Iron and 34th Streets. With a large building that has been adapted and re-purposed for integrated indoor urban agriculture (aquaponics and vermicomposting) and a bike repair facility, as well as extensive grounds for several hoop houses and even more composting bins, Iron Street Farm represents a sophisticated 21st-century post-industrial refashioning of a 19th century industrial landscape.
Iron Street Farm, as seen from Bubbly Creek (M. Bryson)
And what of the connections between the water of the creek and the food growing enterprise along its west bank? They are many and various, as we discussed while “rafting up” our canoes at the southern terminus of Bubbly Creek, where we contemplated the urban ecology of stormwater runoff and combined sewage overflows while floating in the shadow of the massive Racine Avenue Pumping Station. Every drop of water that falls on the compost-enriched soil of Iron Street Farm not only is utilized by edible plants in food production, but also is diverted from the sewer system of the city, thus reducing the total amount of surface run-off that results (in times of sufficient precipitation) in the release of untreated sewage into Bubbly Creek and the many other channels of the Chicago Area Waterway System.
Hoop Houses at Iron Street Farm; Bubbly Creek is just past the fence to the right (M. Bryson)
Beyond this systematic analysis, though, was a more emotional revelation about urban waterways that I felt may have occurred, tacitly but undeniably, amongst us on our trip — one that runs counter to the fears of the uninitiated that scary creatures lurk in the deeps, or that urban rivers are degraded beyond reclamation. Given the chance to experience a river, up close and personal, people of all ages respond to its rough and imperfect charms.
If we can learn to love and value the likes of Bubbly Creek — if we can see that a channelized, polluted, and long-neglected waterway has the potential to become, well, a river again — then just about anything’s possible.
Ivory (foreground) and Deja, two of the Growing Power Youth Corps interns who work at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm (M. Bryson)Our group combined folks from Roosevelt University's SUST 350 Service & Sustainability class, Growing Power staff and Youth Corps interns, and guides from Friends of the Chicago River (M. Bryson)
The Summer Institute on Sustainability and Energy (SISE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago is an intense interdisciplinary program for graduate and senior-level undergraduate students. From August 9-17, participants from diverse academic backgrounds will be immersed in a broad spectrum of sustainability and energy related topics: policy, economics, health, science, engineering, environment, urban planning, business, and entrepreneurship.
Senior SUST major Jeff Wasil, who works as an environmental engineer and who will graduate from RU this spring, was accepted to last summer’s Sustainability Institute at UIC. Jeff was part of an interdisciplinary research team of undergrad and grad students who designed and proposed an “intelligent sewer system” meant to reduce Chicago’s stormwater runoff. The team’s final presentation can be viewed here:
The theme of the SISE 2012 program will be “Election 2012: Energy, Economics and Environment.” Using the presidential election as the point of departure for a critical analysis of national energy and sustainability issues, students will be enveloped in discussions about national challenges such as energy security, economic recovery and growth, US competitiveness, and climate change. Students will divide into teams to propose innovative solutions that rely on combinations of technology, policy and entrepreneurship. The positions of the two political parties are likely to be quite distinct and the public debate lively, providing ample inspiration and engagement for the SISE2012 program. Following its treatment of US energy needs and perspectives, SISE will turn to world energy, addressing the energy relationships between the US and other regions and nations.
Admission to the Summer Institute is highly competitive with only eighty open seats. Students from across Chicago and the country are invited to apply. Prospective students are asked to submit an application and resume for consideration.
UIC is accepting applications from now until the beginning of June.Find out more information here, or contact Thomas Lipsmeyer at (talaan@uic.edu) for questions concerning the program.
This semester my SUST 210 honors class is working on a community-based research project in collaboration with the Chicago non-profit organization, The Institute for Cultural Affairs, based in Uptown. Along with students from several other Chicago colleges and universities, we are researching and mapping sustainability initiatives throughout each of the city’s 77 community areas. The work continues this summer, so the ICA is seeking motivated and interested students for 40 unpaid internships on this tremendous and valuable city-wide project. Here are the details! — Mike Bryson
Application deadline now extended to Monday, April 16, 2012
The ICA Summer Internship Program, “Accelerate 77” is an opportunity for undergrad and graduate students to participate in preparations for the September 15, 2012 Share Fair event that will highlight, connect and accelerate local sustainability initiatives at the community level throughout Chicago neighborhoods. During the 2011-2012 academic school year, 180 students from six Chicago-based universities have participated in the first phase of the Accelerate 77 project by doing fieldwork in 54 of the 77 Chicago community areas. This summer, students will have the opportunity to take the Accelerate 77 project to the next level developing their skill-set through hands-on community based projects and acquiring skill in facilitation and enabling participatory group processes.
This spring ICA will be interviewing for 40 intern positions – flexing the program timetable between June and August. The positions range from:
* community documentation and engagement of sustainable initiatives,
* designing and planning the September 15th event celebrating the 231 initiatives (three initiatives from each of the 77 communities),
* marketing and public relations for the Accelerate 77 project and share fair event, and
* website support for the community documentation, interchange and post-event collaboration.
Out of the 40 intern positions, the program will offer eight students an intensive leadership development course that will provide hands-on experience of co-leading teams in collaboration with eight ICA resource guides.
More information on leadership development opportunities and the Accelerate 77 project can be found at this page on the ICA website.
New application deadline: Monday, April 16th, 2012
This past Wednesday was the third week for my SUST 350 Service & Sustainability class doing work at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm in Cabrini-Green. We help out on a variety of chores and projects at the farm on our Wed afternoon work sessions. Last week we pulled weeds, sifted compost, and harvested thousands of pumpkin seeds from some of last year’s leftover pumpkins. This week we sifted more compost, pulled weeds, and began work on constructing the 2nd hoop house for the farm. Here are some photos I took during that day’s activities.
Our class sessions on Wednesdays start with a discussion from 3-4pm, during which students give short “Farm Reports” on different urban farm operations around the country, and the class as a whole discusses that week’s assigned readings from Lorraine Johnson’s excellent book, City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing. Then, we get together with Growing Power’s Youth Corps kids from the neighborhood, do a few warm-up activities for exercise and community-bonding, and hit the chore list for that day. Our work session ends at 5:30 so students can get to their next class — but most of us are reluctant to stop because it’s so much fun . . . especially when you can work together getting your hands dirty for a good cause.
Here are a few photos from this week.
Josh gives his Farm Report at the picnic area, which doubles as our outside classroom.Starting work on the farm's 2nd hoop house.Rows of soil, built onsite from compost, sit atop the old basketball court -- ready for upcoming spring planting.Steph (L) and Maria sift compost from the worm bin. The result is beautiful, rich, fine soil collected in the tub below the screen; the leftovers are added back into other composting bins.Watering the compost bins at bit now and again helps speed the decomposition process; these bins can produce good compost in 6-9 months. Not your typical agricultural landscape, eh?
For its first field trip experience this spring, my SUST 350 Service & Sustainability class on urban agriculture, social justice, and community development ventured up Lake Michigan’s western shoreline to the great city of Milwaukee. Our destination was the flagship urban farm operation of Growing Power, the non-profit urban ag enterprise established in 1995 by pro basketball player-turned-urban farmer Will Allen.
Growing Power's flagship farm location in Milwaukee
Since the mid-2000s, Growing Power has expanded its operations to several sites in Chicago, including the Chicago Lights Urban Farm (CLUF) in Cabrini-Green, which is the service learning partner organization / work site for our SUST 350 class this semester.
Our objective in visiting Growing Power’s Milwaukee location was to get a hands-on introduction to one of the most celebrated sustainable urban farm operations in the US. We began our day with a picnic lunch at our urban farm site in Chicago, where we broke bread with CLUF/Growing Power staff and Youth Corps high school student interns. Then, we piled into a rented school bus and headed up to Growing Power’s site on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side, where we got a superb and information-packed 90-minute tour of the entire two-acre facility by Amy, a tour facilitator and full-time employee of the farm.
Growing Power is an example of a hybrid urban farm that is focused on developing sustainable urban farming practices in the production of vegetables (especially baby greens salad mixes), fish (primarily tilapia), animal products (goat milk and meat, eggs and poultry), and compost.
Growing trays in greenhouse #1
Their food is sold to area restaurants, at the Growing Power on-site farm stand, and at various “Market Basket” locations in Milwaukee where fresh food is hard to find. All of their growing soil is produced on-site by a sophisticated and large-scale composting system, which includes an impressive vermiculture operation that uses worms to process plant “waste” into nutrient-rich soil. Growing Power is a pioneer is using closed-loop cultivation systems in which wastewater from the aquaponic fish-growing tank flows through hydroponic plant beds, where various vegetables and flowers take up the excess nutrients from the water; the cleansed water is then returned to the aquaponics tanks, to start the cycle again.
Here, perfect soil is created by worms. Dirt is the great equalizer, the foundation of agriculture -- no matter one's race, color, or creed.Aquaponic tank, replenished by water filtered by the hydroponically-grown plants in the upper level
The farm also harvests renewable energy from several solar panel arrays, and uses the heat bio-generated from interior composting bins to warm its several large greenhouses and significantly reduce heating costs during the cold Wisconsin winters.
For a more detailed account of our group’s tour, check out the field trip notes taken by Maria Cancilla of our SUST 350 class at the pdf link below and the photos I took of our tour. Also see Growing Power’s website for a wealth of information about the farm as well as virtual tours of its facility.
Growing Power’s Milwaukee and Chicago facilities are prime examples, but by no means the only ones, of the burgeoning urban farming movement in cities and suburbs across North America. Students in this inaugural section of SUST 350 in Roosevelt’s Sustainability Studies program are working on a community-based research project about the Cabrini-Green neighborhood’s history, present assets, and future prospects. Two-thirds of our class meetings take place at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm in Cabrini-Green, a half-acre urban farm that began as a small community garden built atop a derelict basketball court in 2002. Here we are working side-by-side with Youth Corps teenage interns from the neighborhood to work compost, weed planting beds, harvest seeds from last year’s crops, build a new hoop house, and do whatever else needs to be done in the farm’s early spring work season.
This farm is an inspiring example of how sustainable agriculture in inner-city neighborhoods can contribute to positively to the physical environment, economic activity, educational opportunities, and social fabric of its community. Its example can be a spark for imagining other urban farming projects that could be implemented in underserved communities throughout the greater Chicago region — such as my hometown of Joliet, IL, located 40 miles southwest of Chicago’s Loop.
Vermiculture compost bins inside a greenhouse at Growing PowerThe production of compost at Growing Power's 2-acre site is incredible; we called this pile "Mount Compost"Our group from Roosevelt University and the Chicago Lights Urban Farm
Roosevelt University will host an Internship and Career Fair at the Chicago Campus on April 12 from 2 to 6 p.m. in the Congress Lounge. Students will have the opportunity to speak directly to employers who have opportunities available immediately. This is also a good chance for those students who still need summer internship options to get that opportunity that they desire. Students must dress to impress and bring plenty of resumes, questions, and a positive attitude. Those who need to polish their resumes or brush-up on interviewing skills contact the Career Development office for help at (312) 341-3560.
For more information, contact Chris Willis, Assistant Director, Employer Relations and Internships, at cwillis@roosevelt.edu.
