Ryan Clark
Dr. Holifield
Intro. to Environmental Geography
4/29/09
Clark 1
Upon completion of a task or decision, reflection is key in order to rate the decision or performance completed. The reflection process also allows the constructions of checkpoints to recollect on when put in a similar situation. Introduction to Environmental Geography has a required service learning component which I have just completed. The project has two purposes which will allow the service learner to yield the greatest understanding of environmental geography. The first purpose of the project is to study environmental geography and look at it on a much smaller scope of Milwaukee. The second purpose of the course is to help the agencies with their efforts to improve the environment of Milwaukee. Both of these purposes will be achieved through the 10-15 hours we complete while working with our service learning agency.
Although all the content we need to achieve these purposes can be obtained just through the work of our agencies, we must study environmental geography in the classroom and combine our own personal experiences with what we have learned to create the most in-depth understanding.
In the beginning of the semester we were given a list of agencies in which we were directed to pick the best suited one for our schedule and interest. I took the initiative to look at each agencies main purposes and available volunteer hours and through this process I gleaned enough information to pick the most unique agency to me, the Urban Ecology Center. This agency seemed best suitable for me for multiple reasons. I lived in the dorms and I needed an agency in a close proximity so that I could either take public transportation or walk to the site, and the Urban Ecology Center is located only a few blocks away on Park St. I also wanted a agency that held a plethora of hours for volunteers to work because I have a very busy schedule

and needed a great deal of margin to pick certain days and hours. The Urban Ecology Center held volunteer hours on both Tuesday and Saturday mornings every week which allowed me to have a lot of leeway in times that I could complete my hours. Not only did this agency have a great deal of open hours, but it held an annual Earth Day Festival in which a large sum of hours could be compiled and would only take one day. Since I could easily make time in my schedule to leave a free day on April 18 th
to volunteer all day at the festival, I would have no trouble completing the required amount of hours. The criteria above is only part of the reason why I chose the Urban Ecology Center, and the other part consisted solely on the agency’s purpose, which is where I truly found my niche at the Urban Ecology Center.
The Urban Ecology Center was founded in 1991 after the community started to notice the steady decline of Riverside Park’s health and community use. The center has multiple sources of funding which vary from government grants to annual fundraisers. Ever since the center was created its efforts have been steadily increasing to ensure that Riverside Park and the surrounding community stay healthy. Although the center may not have started as an educational center, today all of the center’s programs and activities stem from education. The Urban Ecology
Center has a very taut belief on education and its effect on ecologically responsible citizens.
The center believes that if the youth is educated on being ecologically responsible as they develop that they will retain this knowledge and use it through adulthood.
The knowledge concerning ecology can be retained in multiple fashions and is available to the entire community. The biggest program that promotes ecological education is the
Neighborhood Environmental Educational Project. The project involves over 15,000 students in grades K-12 along with various instructors. The project focuses on two main components which include constant contact with the environment, and the instruction of a mentor who can educate

him or her on environmental awareness. If the person can’t get involved this way there are multiple other programs and activities which promote education. The way in which I was directly involved in the Urban Ecology Center was through the Earth Day Festival which I was a volunteer for the Animal Olympics activity. The activity allowed children to engage in an act and then compare the results to other animals.
The Urban Ecology Center promotes education and preservation, but how does the agency help address problems in the community? The Urban Ecology Center seems at first glance to revolve in its own little bubble and function independently. The agency does not venture out into the community anymore than flyers, which I believe is mainly because of its heritage. The center was developed to curb pollution in the Riverside Park and promote education and health to the community about these problems. There was no need to venture out into the community because the community was coming to them. Although there was no need to physically venture out to other locations besides another park, Washington Park, doesn’t mean that the Urban Ecology Center wasn’t having effects on other places and at different scales.
My agency has set a precedent for not only Milwaukee, but for all who look on at the ecological advancements taking place today. The community has proven to themselves that through teamwork and proper action, solutions can be made to fix problems within the community especially public sites. Through the development of this center and its precedent status, the community can use their success as case law to allow further developments of parallel sites like the Urban Ecology Center around Milwaukee. The development may not have the same effect of precedent in areas other than the Milwaukee Metro Area, but it can be used as a reference point to other communities as they try to develop centers like the Urban Ecology
Center. On a broad scale I don’t believe that the Urban Ecology Center was a frontier in the

world of ecological education and addressing pollution in parks, but I do believe that it supports a larger cause. The whole cause of going green has seen a rapid increase in both community and industrial contexts. People are becoming aware of the carbon footprints and harmful processes they are leaving behind. I believe that the Urban Ecology center is a large carrier for this cause and educates the surrounding community on this cause and gives them opportunities to support it. People outside of Milwaukee County may not know what the Urban Ecology Center is, but they do know what “going green” means which the center is a large supporter of. I would describe The Urban Ecology Center as a tacit facility which is used as a vehicle to promote a greater cause. Although the agency is located in an urban environment, the agency tends to lack involvement in addressing much of the cities inequality.
The Urban Ecology Center seems to look away from racial disparity in the urban environment. I doubt the agency is unaware; I just believe that their purpose to educate and benefit everyone, not try and help a certain race because of limited opportunities. The Earth day
Festival promoted integration of races, and I observed an evenly distributed percentage of races and ethnicities. For the agency to address racial inequality they would have to drastically reconstruct its purpose and make it more elastic. The Urban Ecology Center is too specialized to try and integrate racial disparity with ecological education. I am actually unaware of any agency that has found a successful program that found the ability to weave racial inequality with environmental education.
The agency does require a membership fee to newly joined members, and from my knowledge it isn’t very cheap. I realize that the agency needs to fund all the research and programs that take place, but the fee restricts the amount of community members who have the ability to become a member. Milwaukee is in the top ten for poorest cities in the nation, and

charging an expensive fee does not promote differences in income. The membership fee actually broadens the spectrum of income differential and I believe will cause the center to only be utilized by the more well off populations in the community. From the member that I came in contact with at the agency which was only a few, they were all white middle aged mothers and fathers. Instead of the agency creating an environment where synergy and integration can take place, the agency has created a site where white families can take their children and throw expensive birthday parties. Yes, the agency does allow thousands of MPS students to come and learn about the environment, but not for free. I have a feeling that a great deal of government funding is because of the promotion of education to MPS students.
The only inequality that is promoted by the Urban Ecology Center is difference in land use between urban and rural communities. The agency has just recently created a series of cubic gardens where families can purchase a plot and grow their own garden. I believe that this addition was well thought and allows families to have the experience of growing their own food and the labor intensive process it entails. After the food is grown the family can reap the benefits of eating what they made. The only thing problematic but unavoidable is the fee for purchasing the temporary plot of land. Once again most families who are struggling don’t have the extra funds to spend on a family activity. Yes they would benefit from the food, but the amount of food actually yielded isn’t worth the cost. Even though this is only way that I found the Urban
Ecology Center addresses inequality, there are many reasons why it is so difficult to address other forms of inequality because of the agency’s purpose. I think that the center could address income inequality, but I do understand why the need for funds hinders the ability to lift membership and garden fees so that the lower socioeconomic classes can get involved in the opportunities the center offers.

The initiatives that the Urban Ecology Center is involved with are great steps to promoting global ecological education, but I don’t think the small proximity they are educating is actually making an impact. Even though the center sees over 15,000 students annually, how many students actually take what they learned out of the academic context and apply it to the environment? I remember when I would attend field trips I would pay attention slightly but mostly focus on my friends and the ‘cool’ things I observed. I don’t remember taking what I learned about dinosaurs at the museum and applying it to a social context. The amount of kids that come through the center all hear the same spiel, but how many actually pay attention or know how to take knowledge out of a game at a young age?
While I worked the Animal Olympics all day which did promote education by supplying posters with fun facts that kids could read and compare their abilities to, the content present was very limited. The kids did learn interesting facts about animals, but how is that experience different than the child who buys a Snapple and reads the fun fact on the cap? I know it’s hard to implement raw facts and ecological information into a youth curriculum, but I think the attempt that took place at the festival was quite diluted. I believe that maybe an employee with knowledge and practice with teaching methods could easily create a curriculum with a higher learning yield than the one presently in place.
Although I’m sure there are many other agencies throughout the nation that are located and hold a similar purpose, I don’t think that there is enough communication between the webs of locations to make a national difference. The Urban Ecology Center is very unique based on the problems it is facing, but one agency can only do so much. The agency has made a positive influence in the community within a close proximity to the facility, but outside of that boundary the influence is invisible. I live in the dorms just a few blocks away and I didn’t hear about the

agency until a list of them was handed to me. I do not believe that the individual efforts of the agency are making a global difference. The only global influence that is possible for me is replication of the agency in different locations, which then could create a larger influence. The community and the agency have done a great job working together to bring back vibrant life and ecological that once was seen as eradicated at Riverside Park. There has been a great deal of local change, but I think the city limit is where the change influence of the Urban Ecology Center is curbed.
After reflection back on all the work my agency and I have completed a sense of accomplishment is felt. The Urban Ecology Center has had this feeling since established in
1991, and I just got a taste of it through the few hours at the weed-outs and my part during the
Earth Day Festival. I felt that I actually passed on some knowledge to the youth who attended the festival, and I hope they eventually apply what they learned and help conserve the environment. The agency has had a great deal of success in educating the youth and promoting environmental conservation, but it has only spread to the local area. One agency can only do so much, but I think with my experience there and the solutions I offered the center can begin to spread their influence outside of Milwaukee and possibly team up with other causes to create a more potent influence. The Urban Ecology Center was a great experience and is doing very positive things in the community, and I am glad I received the opportunity to take part in the
Earth Day Festival.