Michelle Bufton
Environmental Geography 125
Spring 2009
Service Learning Project
My Experience at the Urban Ecology Center of Milwaukee
This semester, a component of my Environmental Geography 125 course was to
work with a local agency in a total of ten to fifteen hours, in order to connect ideas and
concepts discussed in class. The organization I chose to work with was the Urban
Ecology Center in Milwaukee. The Urban Ecology Center is located in Riverside Park
which is one of the oldest parks in the city of Milwaukee. For years, this park was one of
the most popular and most visited parks in Milwaukee. Riverside Park was used for
boating, swimming, sledding, ice skating, hiking and more, but after the river became
polluted, the use of Riverside Park diminished and the county soon abandoned the park.
Abandonment of this area created an unsafe environment and crime rates skyrocketed.
Criminal activity was a daily occurrence in the Riverside Park area with drugs, murders,
rape etc.
In the 1980’s, meetings were held in the community to try to come up with a
plan for the future of Riverside Park. The decision was made that the park would be used
for education for neighborhood schools. In order to provide a safe learning institution,
the land would have to be used consistently in order for crime to disappear. A group of
volunteer educators began to lead fieldtrips to the park and by the late 1990’s the park
was used on a consistent basis and crime rates began to diminish.
In 2004, the Urban Ecology Center was built and designed especially for the
education of neighborhood school children. The Urban Ecology Center has played a
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major role in successfully eliminating crime and turning this once unsafe fifteen acres of
wooded land into a safe environment for the community to learn and be used by.
My service learning at the Urban Ecology Center has been an eye opening
experience for me as well as a learning tool used to help me connect ideas and themes to
Environmental Geography 125. My hours consisted of outdoor field work where we
removed invasive species from the wooded areas, picked up garbage around the park and
a neighboring school as well as preparation for the Earth Day festival and Earth Day
festival art Activities. I learned a lot about what the Urban Ecology provides for the
environment, and I also received a good background as to how they try and help the
environment along with educating children in the neighborhood. My favorite experience
at the Urban Ecology Center was working in preparation for the Earth Day festival as
well as volunteering at the Earth Day festival with the art activities and face painting.
Along with other volunteers, I helped in deciding what art projects we were going
to incorporate into the Earth Day festival for the children to participate in, keeping in
mind that they art projects had to be environmentally sound. We came up with flower
pots which incorporated the use of recycled tin cans and would help instill the idea to
children of the importance of recycling and greenery. We also came up with having the
children create pet rocks and shells, using non toxic paints and donated rocks and shells,
Crayon etching from recycled paper and donated crayons, and picture frames, where
children could decorate their own picture frames donated to the Urban Ecology Center.
All of the materials used for the art projects were materials that had been donated to them
by local schools, agencies or individual donors.
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On the day of the Earth Day festival, I volunteered from 9:00am until 4:00pm.
This gave me a chance to experience the preparation, and dedication that goes into
creating an influential day for people of the community. Along with others, I helped set
up the art room, assisted children in their art activities and painted children’s faces. I
could not believe how many people came to the Earth Day festival. I didn’t know that
the Urban Ecology was such a well known organization and not only that; there were
people from all walks of life, coming together with the intensions of learning and having
fun. This is something I don’t see very often in Milwaukee. There were activities such
as learning about the insects in the ponds, water irrigation, rock climbing, tours, biology
of plants and animals, art and crafts, and more. I am really glad that I was able to be a
part of something so influential and fun.
In class, we discussed different scales and processes. The Urban Ecology Center
works on many scales and processes using many different aspects. On a neighborhood
scale, the Urban Ecology Center has made huge impacts in the community. Where there
was once a crime ridden deserted park, the Urban Ecology Center and its volunteers have
created a safe, beautiful, educational, recreational and usable area where community
members have the freedom to come and enjoy what it has to offer. One of the main goals
of the Urban Ecology Center is to guide children into becoming ecological responsible
adults. In order to accomplish this and promote the positive advances in the environment,
constant contact with nature in the early lives of children along with adult mentors who
demonstrate positive behavior toward the environment is a focus point.
Milwaukee is one of the most densely populated cities in the United States. I feel
that the community as a whole has been misunderstood and stereotyped as low income
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poverty stricken area in some parts and while that may be true of some parts in
Milwaukee, the Urban Ecology Center works to bridge the gap between different parts of
this community as a whole. At no cost, people of all races, income and socioeconomic
status are all welcome to use what the Urban Ecology Center has to offer. Many people
who live in the city of Milwaukee tend to live in apartment buildings where there is little
availability of green space and ecological availability. The schools that the children go to
have play grounds covered in asphalt and concrete where greenery is limited. The Urban
Ecology Center is a place where these people can enjoy nature and come to learn about
ecology.
In 2007, Milwaukee was named the seventh most poverty stricken area in the
United States. The Urban Ecology Center works very hard to address differences and
inequalities within the Milwaukee area. Over 75% of the students who attend the 30
schools who are partnered with the Urban Ecology Center are a part of the free and
reduced lunch program. The Urban Ecology Center specifically focuses on providing
financial backing and transportation for children who would otherwise be the least likely
to be able to travel to nature reserves. Children who are unable to pay for their field trips
to the Urban Ecology Center are provided with at least half if not more of the finances to
cover their trip and transportation. In addition, over half of the children who are involved
in the Urban Ecology Center summer day camps get scholarships.
When we talk about water sheds, what they mean, and how they operate, it seems
that there are a lot of things that can go wrong when trying to preserve one of our most
precious sources of freshwater in the world. In class we had discussed the importance of
freshwater and the rate in which we are losing it. Pollution from many different sources
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such as household pollutants being flushed down the drain, poured on the ground where it
can seep into the ground water, pollution dumping and water runoff from the street drains
are all harmful to our freshwater sources. On a city level, the Urban Ecology Center has
worked at limiting the amount of pollution to our Great Lakes, reducing the amount of
runoff from the street drain, as well taking steps to reduce their water consumption.
Limiting the amount of pollutants in our Great Lakes seems like an easy fix, but
studies has shown as well as conversations in class that monitoring the pollutants and
where they come from can be difficult. The products we use in our households, at work,
in our lawn and gardens, as well as industrial pollutants can all affect our freshwater
systems. One of the ways that the Urban Ecology Center has tried to divert water from
filtering into the street drains is the use of high porosity and high permeability materials
for the filtration of water into the ground instead of the drains. Outside for example, most
of the sidewalks and paths are made out of special cement that allows water to filter
through it and into the ground beneath it instead of flowing off into the streets as runoff.
Another way to divert water from flowing into drains is the use of ponds for water
holding capacity and habitat support. There is a pond located in front of the Center
which collects rain water and supports habitat and education of the types of plants,
greenery, fish and insects that flourish in it.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the Urban Ecology Center is their
productive use of rain water. In normal instances, our toilet water comes from Lake
Michigan which is sent down the drain into the sewage treatment system of Milwaukee
and back into Lake Michigan. The Urban Ecology Center collects rain water in barrels
and uses that water to flush their toilets. When this idea was first proposed, the city of
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Milwaukee’s water utility company was against the idea because they were unable to
monitor the amount of water the Center used because they weren’t using any water from
the city. After months of contemplation, the Urban Ecology Center finally got the go
ahead with their idea. The rainwater is used in place of the city water and there are two
buttons on top of the toilet for the amount of water to use. If you go a little bit, you push
the first button which uses a little bit of water and the second button is used when you go
a lot to use slightly more water. Both of these buttons reduce the amount of water that
goes down the drain compared to regular toilets.
These inventive ideas could be implemented in numerous spaces in Milwaukee to
conserve water to protect our great lakes resource. If only politics didn’t get into the
way. The Great Lakes watershed in which we live are an important and declining
resource which we must take new measures to protect. I believe that in the next century
there will be huge conflicts as to who has the right to this freshwater resource. Some
people have even said that there is potential for “water wars” over the Great Lakes.
On a national level, the Urban Ecology Center has been recognized for its use of
recycled and renewable materials. This can influence other communities around the
United States to implement some of the same ideas in the development of their area.
Expanding education in urban areas as well as rural can influence the next generation to
make better choices when it comes to the environment and future sustainability of our
Earth. As far as a global level, the sky is the limit. The more these environmentally
friendly practices are recognized, the more it can be implemented around the world.
Although the Urban Ecology Center has made vast contributions to the
community of Milwaukee there are always going to be limitations. The Center has used
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basically all recycled and reusable materials in the building itself to create a green
educational building. The steps that the Center has taken and continues to take to solve
environmental problems are examples of positive changes we can all make in our
personal lives. The biggest problem that I see being a limitation to positively influencing
our environment is money. Of course, people living in Milwaukee at or below the
poverty line can not afford to put in Green materials in their own homes due to the
financial cost or because they do not have the permission from landlords. Collecting
rainwater and using it to flush toilets could only be a possibility if there is financial
backing for the instillation and mechanics of it. Some small steps that I think everyone
can take can be as simple as not flushing the toilet as much. This may sound gross but
you could be saving hundreds of gallons of water every year if you flushed the toilet
every other time instead of every time. The use of water can be cut down in the kitchen
as well. When washing dishes, don’t let the water run constantly while washing, and use
the dishwasher less.
Another great idea to cut down on the use of water is to cut back on the amount of
water we use to water our lawns. Thousands of gallons of water are being used just to
water our lawns. My mom has a water barrel right under her gutter drain which collects
all of the rain water. She uses the rainwater collected in this barrel to water her garden
and lawn instead of using more freshwater. Everyone can take little steps into reducing
their consumption with water and other resources such as energy consumption,
transportation, electricity, foods and waste production. As a whole I don’t think that
people realize what they have and how lucky we are as a country to have the things we
do.
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Another major limitation to the Urban Ecology Centers efforts could be that the
information is not reaching all people across Milwaukee. I didn’t even know that the
Urban Ecology Center existed until I took a tour there last semester with another class of
mine. I think that more advertisement for the Center would be beneficial if it was able to
reach all neighborhoods and encouraged everyone to come for their own educational
benefit as well as fun activities. Education is the main engine for people to be aware of
their surroundings. If people living in Milwaukee do not have to knowledge of
environmental issues happening locally, how will they know how to contribute to the
positive change of environmental issues? Getting information out to people is the main
idea here and it is the most important one at that.
On a broader scale, limitations that would affect inequalities in Milwaukee will
never go away. One of the biggest problems in Milwaukee is racism and segregation.
Social Justice and racism is something that a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking
about but I think that it needs to be talked about. The Urban arena of Milwaukee has
been divided with the white Americans on the outside of the inner cities and with the
African American’s left inside the inner city along with drugs, violence and other
implications. The suburbs and cities of today continue to separate the natural integrated
human activities of dwelling, shopping, working, schooling and recreation. As a
community we need to come together and improve our city as a whole and from there we
can improve our city, state, nation and eventually the world.
In conclusion, the Urban Ecology Center has made great leaps and bounds in their
mission to expand education of ecology in the city of Milwaukee. More places like the
Urban Ecology Center need to be available for everyone living in Milwaukee. More
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parks and wildlife greenery need to be available and kept clean for people to come and
enjoy. If people are not being subjected to the earth and its natural environment, how can
we appreciate it? The earth is one big interconnected process and in order for us to make
change it has to come from something small which will build and become something
larger.
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