Living in the City of Chicago, the urban forest plays a major role in our day-to-day lives. Trees are an important part of what keeps our air clean and our homes cool, while also providing aesthetic beauty and welcome respite from an otherwise man-made environment. With nearly 70,000 acres of forest preserves and 570 individual parks, Chicago greenspaces offer innumerable social and ecological benefits. Even at DePaul University, the trees that line our streets and provide a bit of sanctuary in places like Lincoln Park's Quad are a vital part of what makes the campus such a beautiful place. In order to protect these benefits, however, it is important that we understand the structure and health of our trees on campus.
How we got started:
In the Fall of 2017, an Urban Forests as Social-Ecological Systems course led by Dr. Jess Vogt completed an inventory of DePaul's urban forest to create a tree care plan, and to begin meeting requirements for Tree Campus USA designation by the Arbor Day Foundation. By conducting an inventory of trees by location, species, size, and relative condition, the class began to understand the overall diversity of DePaul's campus, and were thus able to make recommendations that would help protect it for future generations. While the inventory found that DePaul's trees were in overall good condition, there was not a lot of diversity in species or size (Lyhus et al., 2017). Based on this data, students were able to recommend that future tree plantings occur as space became available and to focus efforts on choosing from a diverse list of species that are recommended in the City of Chicago.
A digital map of DePaul's urban forest was created by ENV graduate, Rasa Whittaker, and updated in 2019 by DePaul Tree officers, Alli Preble and Tom Ebeling.
In order to achieve the status of a Tree Campus USA, student-run DePaul Trees was formed to:
- Create a tree advisory board that included a faculty member, student, community arborist, and facilities member
- Hold an Arbor Day Celebration highlighting the importance of trees
- Host service-learning opportunities for students interested in making a local impact through community tree plantings.
Through this collaborative effort, DePaul University has been awarded Tree Campus USA designation for the past two years.
Learn more about Arbor Day Foundation's Tree Campus USA designation.