Students in Merry Lea’s Master’s in Environmental Education program spent December 1 and 2 in Detroit, Mich., learning about greening in an urban context. Professional field studies such as this overnight field trip are a regular part of the program. Several of them feature urban contexts to broaden the experiences that students receive in rural Northern Indiana.
At the organization’s Market Gardens, the group helped prepare beds for the winter. Urban gardening includes the challenge of polluted soil. These 2.5 acres were reclaimed from an industrial site that had soil so contaminated it had to be capped and the cap covered with several feet of fill dirt.
Students and faculty also visited a schoolyard garden. MAEE students and faculty pose in front of a wall made of recycled lumber at the Green Garage in Detroit.
Creative recycling was a repeating theme during the trip. Recycled materials were used throughout a business incubator that the cohort visited called the Green Garage. As the name suggests, this nonprofit makes its home in an old garage. The retrofitting from garage to nonprofit office created only one dumpster of trash. For example, the textured wood wall behind the master’s students consists of board scraps glued together. The railings on the stairs were previously pipes.
At the Heidelberg Project, students witnessed a nearly abandoned neighborhood repurposed as a series of art installations created from recycled materials.
“Over the four years I’ve been coming on this trip, we’ve been able to see positive changes in the communities we visit,” observed Luke Gascho who teaches a leadership course in the master’s program.
One example was the wall of a brick building behind the Greening of Detroit’s market garden. Once it was covered with graffiti. Now, it sports a mural depicting a smartly attired marching band playing instruments recycled from trash.
