What is the Botanical Tour?
Collaborating with Environmental Science student, Daniel Collay, for his senior capstone project as well as faculty, and staff across campus we are developing signed Sustainability and Botanical Tours to educate our regional community about SOU’s myriad of sustainability programs and biodiversity. To recruit students and foster community-wide engagement, participants are guided by interactive informational signs through a tour from The Farm at SOU, to bioswales and solar arrays at our dorms and Student Union, up to our native Arboretum, through the ECOS community gardens, our pesticide-free Pollinator Gardens and more; over 100 specimen plants and sustainability projects are featured. Our Digital Campus Map includes Sustainability and Botanical Tour layers that allow people to find and read about any spot along the tours. Creating these accessible tours illuminates and encourages the ways in which our campus and greater community can expand sustainability in their lives.