Story on WUWM public radio

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“The school will have a new base just 30 miles up the road from Milwaukee at the UW - Milwaukee Field Station.

“Co-founder Dan Collins says the station is not only a perfect place to learn about biodiversity but ‘A palette of different kinds of habitats — upland forest, we have meadows, we have prairies, we have emergent aquatic wetlands,’ Collins says.

“The location brings the school closer to communities Aten and Collins want to be of value to. ‘In the past, we haven’t made the opportunity for people to come into this knowledge and this type of career. So we want to be a door opener allowing people and supporting people to learn this practice of ecological restoration,’ Collins says.

“That means, students don’t pay to learn, instead they receive a stipend.

“Collins says the practice makes all the sense in the world. ‘We re going to need to solve this problem of not enough biodiversity, not enough high quality water, not enough ecological restoration. Now’s the time that we need to solve that. And so, we understand that in order for someone to change their career, they’re going to need to make money while they do it. Everybody who attends is paid,’ Collins says.

“The school sets a high bar. Not only do students learn about soils, hydrology, invasive species control and a host of other topics. Each student designs a detailed, ecological restoration plan.

“ ‘We had a lot of uncertainty about whether they would each actually be able to write and develop an ecological restoration plan for a real site. It’s a big hurdle to do that in the last two weeks of an eight-week program. But that moment when they were finishing their plans and then presented them publicly was really a big wow moment for us. They all had different approaches, and it really showed in very different plans,’ Aten says.”