To help Hoosiers be informed about environmental change and make the best decisions for themselves and their communities, the Environmental Resilience Institute supports initiatives spanning journalism, art, history, education, and government.
By leveraging multiple storytelling mediums, providing new professional development opportunities, and supplying decision makers with useful data, the institute is connecting directly with Hoosiers of all ages and backgrounds.
To help Hoosiers be informed about environmental change, ERI supports reporting efforts in public media, independent journalism, and podcasting. These professional storytelling organizations are providing actionable information to Hoosiers and drawing attention to environmental issues in the state and around the world using multiple mediums.
ERI Fellow Maria Whiteman is investigating and illustrating the environmental benefits of fungi by conveying how the fungi and mycelium world form a functional and important part of Indiana's biodiversity.
Educating for Environmental Change is providing immersive, hands-on workshops for Indiana educators focused on climate change and its impact on local communities. Led by IU faculty in collaboration with K-12 teachers and the WonderLab Museum of Science, Health, and Technology, this effort prepares teachers using data-driven classroom lessons and age-appropriate activities.
Led by ERI Fellow Elizabeth Grennan Browning, Hoosier Lifelines is a participatory, grassroots project of historic and artistic storytelling about environmental and social change in Indiana during a time period marked by human-driven change to Earth’s ecosystems.
IU’s Gary Motz leads the Hoosier Environmental Forecast Matrix, an effort to modernize and incorporate environmental change data generated by Institute Research Fellows into IndianaMap, the largest public collection of Indiana geographic information systems (GIS) map data.
Though environmental change is a global phenomenon, it’s actually felt at the local level, where communities must deal with the effects of heat, flooding, drought, and other challenges. The Local Government Outreach and Education team work to connect local governments and other groups to tools and resources that can bolster Indiana’s resilience.
Through an exhibition entitled “800 Seasons: Change and Continuity in Bloomington 1818-2018" visitors were encouraged to reflect on how humans settled and developed the city of Bloomington and the surrounding area and what the ramifications of those choices may be for the future.
Featuring artifacts from Indiana’s prehistory alongside visual art that documents biodiversity in Indiana, "State of Nature: Picturing Indiana Biodiversity” fosters awareness of ecological developments, climate change impacts on everyday life, and Hoosiers’ immediate natural surroundings.
