Center for Earth and Environmental Science at IU Indianapolis

On the road of life, college graduation is a major milestone. It is the result of dedication and hard work.
CEES Interns Halyee Carter, Ivey Ross, Claira Brizendine, and Addison Lopian have wrapped up their undergraduate degrees and are moving on to bigger and better things.
Congratulations Academic Year 2025/2026 Graduates! We at CEES salute your achievement!
Enjoy this retrospective of your time with CEES.

CEES and INDNR are partnering to offer the Indiana Streams Course, a four-part series for environmental professionals.

Migratory bird movement through Indiana peaks during the month of May as birds engage in their annual journey to their summer breeding grounds. This is a time when the likelihood of bird-building collisions increases.
CEES is recording bird-building collisions on campus. The data collected will help identify areas on campus that are more prone to collisions (so that we know where collision-reduction measures need to be concentrated).
Your help is needed!
If you find a bird, you can report it to the Center using our handy online reporting form (the button for the reporting form is at the bottom of the project page): https://cees.indianapolis.iu.edu/service-learning/current-projects/bird-window-strike-project/index.html
Alternatively, email CEES ([email protected]) and provide the following information about when/where you found the bird: date, time, building, and side of the building where the bird struck. If possible, please include a photo (or photos) of the bird (beak-to-tail close-up), as well as a photo showing the bird in relation to the building where it was found (this helps us locate the bird).
If you come across a bird in a chalk circle, that means we've already collected data for that bird.

CEES interns Ivey Ross and Claira Brizendine presented their work at the IU INSPIRE Showcase today.

IU INSPIRE (IU INdiananapolis Scholarly Projects, Internships, Research & Engagement) is a chance for students to show off the work they've been doing over the past year. Said work takes various and sundry forms - some traditional, some unusual.

This year, the event was held at the NCAA building - a much more capacious venue than has been enjoyed in times past!

Happy Earth Day! Truly a day to explore the myriad wonders of nature.
Enjoy this rare find on a rare fine day.

King Rails, the largest species of North American rails, are not commonly seen in Indiana. In addition to being shy, secretive, and uncommon, they are under threat of extinction: their conservation status is "orange alert tipping point species."

Conservation organizations have adopted a color-coded system to indicate the extinction threat level that a species faces. An orange alert indicates that a species' population size has declined by 50% or more over the past 50 years. In the case of King Rails, losses have accelerated in the last decade.
These rails have experienced a cumulative population decline of 85% since 1966, much of which has been caused by loss of their wetland habitat.

As it turns out, the April 10th service learning event was not, in fact, the final stewardship project of the semester. That honor went to today's event - a last minute addition to the schedule that took place because there was still sections of the ARBOR in need of clearing of invasive garlic mustard. The April 10th volunteer crew made mighty inroads in outing garlic mustard from the ARBOR. However, due to lack of time (or too much garlic mustard) last week's focus was predominantly restricted to the southern portion of the ARBOR. Today's volunteers covered the forest's northern section.

What a difference a week makes! The weather today was decidedly NOT picture perfect, being far too warm for the middle of April. Many of the spring ephemerals seen in abundance on April 10 were "past prime" today (April 17). A different set of spring wildflowers is now in bloom, as are a few tree species (hawthorns, buckeyes) that have showy flowers. More wildlife was in evidence: spiders have begun spinning webs, and a number of butterflies - and some caterpillars - were seen.

Today's volunteer group was small in number, but mighty in effort. Three 45-gallon bags stuffed full of garlic mustard were removed from the ARBOR, clearing the north end of the forest of the invasive herb. Interestingly, many of the plants found were small and stunted, with curling leaves. Additionally, garlic mustard leaves were often covered in small holes - clearly something was nibbling on them! Could native herbivores - and possibly fungal, bacterial, or viral pathogens - be adapting to handle this invasive species' particular cocktail of chemical defenses?

Good work today, volunteers! You persevered under trying conditions and accomplished a great deal! Thanks also to our project partner, Urban Wilderness Trail's Greg Harger, who hauled away the invasives and trash we removed from the forest.

April 15 isn't just the Ides of April - in Indianapolis it's officially Light Reduction for Migratory Birds Day!

It was a picture perfect day for the last service learning project of spring term - picture perfect in that A) it did not rain as it had been threatening to do all week, and B) it was surprisingly clement (overcast, breezy, and cool, but not too cool). Students gathered at the ARBOR for a morning of invasive species wrangling and more! While the original plan had been to focus exclusively on Garlic Mustard, removal efforts over the past two years have been so successful that there was not as much of the invasive herb as expected. Consequently, the group diversified its efforts and spent time cleaning up trash (deposited by flooding that has occurred since the last trash clean-up) and keeping watch for (and removing) any wintercreeper that lurked on the forest floor.

The morning's work began at the New York Street bridge; from there the group sweeping northwards. Garlic mustard and wintercreeper were found almost immediately.

Garlic mustard, a common European garden herb was brought to North America in the 1800s by European settlers because its garlicky leaves and peppery seeds served a variety of culinary (and medicinal) purposes. The herb's tiny seeds (easily carried in fur, feathers, and the muddy feet of various critters) and semi-explosive method of seed dispersal allowed it to escape the garden and become established in the wild. A single robust plant produces hundreds of tiny seeds, which may be flung several meters from the parent plant when the seed pod (called a silique) ruptures.

Wintercreeper is another plant that "escaped cultivation" to become established in the wild (though in this case, wintercreeper was grown as an ornamental). As with many invasive species, a small patch quickly becomes a large patch (if left alone), and in a few seasons, this highly aggressive, fast-spreading, vining groundcover can take over the forest floor (excluding most individuals of other species). This is not a fate that we want for the ARBOR, so constant vigilance is necessary to ensure that wintercreeper never gains a strong foothold in the forest!

Though we weren't able to cover the entirety of the ARBOR during the allotted time, by project's end twelve bags of trash/garlic mustard/wintercreeper, and one bag of recyclables had been cleared from the forest.

Good work volunteers!

Synergy among environmental restoration projects - it is a beautiful thing!

The weather remained cold, but sunny skies made for an excellent day of environmental stewardship at Northwestway Park. Once again, our target species was bush honeysuckle, and, following the lead of the previous day, the crew continued to work in the central region of the park near the prairie habitat and hiking trails. Student volunteers had no trouble finding and removing honeysuckle wherever it lurked - because the invasive shrub lurked everywhere. To say that bush honeysuckle dominates the forest understory at Northwestway Park would be an understatement; a more accurate description is that the understory is a monoculture of bush honeysuckle.

Before tackling bush honeysuckle, however, the group took care of a Callery pear tree growing in the work area. Like bush honeysuckle, Callery pear was brought to North America as an ornamental plant, but the tree escaped cultivation and became invasive. Callery pear (also known as Bradford pear) blooms before it leafs out, so it is easily identified at this time of year because it is currently covered in small white flowers. Dense stands of Callery pear are often seen along interstates and in other areas where trees grow wild.

Many thanks to Carson Murphy from the Indianapolis Office of Land Stewardship for working with CEES to provide a great environmental restoration experience for IU Indianapolis students! And many thanks to our student volunteers for their hard work! A great deal of honeysuckle (and one big Callery pear!) were removed today.