The Bowman Creek project started off as a creek revitalization project in the Southeast Neighborhood of South Bend in 2014. Now in its third year, we are working to develop an "educational ecosystem", a new model for internships, where students work with community organizations, city government, and local institutions to develop creative solutions to community issues and bring about positive change. Through this educational ecosystem model, students diverse in age, race, gender, level of education, and majors are piloting projects and programs in the Southeast neighborhood that can then be scaled and replicated in other neighborhood and cities similar to South Bend. In past years, students have focused on environmental resilience and stewardship through actions such as installing rain gardens to decrease stormwater overflow effects and developing positive adaptive reuse options for vacant lots.
At the Brown Bag event, our goals will be to develop an understanding of our educational ecosystem, cover a few cornerstone projects we have been working on, and briefly discuss our plans for replication around South Bend.