Wild Indigo Nature Explorations 

Wild Indigo Nature Explorations is a community engagement program that seeks to build lasting relationships between urban communities of color and their local natural areas. The goal is to demonstrate the connection between healthy natural habitats and healthy urban communities via activities that familiarize adults and children with the nature and wildlife that share the spaces where they live, work, and play.

Wild Indigo Coordinators, together with local partners and community members, create nature-based activities tailored for the specific communities that address concerns around accessibility, safety, and wellness while also leading to conservation impacts for the unique habitats and birds that depend on them. 

By building programs in collaboration with community, Wild Indigo helps to address the barriers that make natural spaces inaccessible to communities of color and begins to dismantle perceptions that nature is not for them. From community parks to state forests, Wild Indigo invites participants to get up-close with local natural areas at their own pace.

To develop programming that builds comfort in nature, whether in parks, natural areas, or on walks around the block, Wild Indigo Coordinators facilitate a whole host of experiences including, but not limited to:

• Nature hikes where participants learn the basics of identifying local birds.
• Overnight camping experiences to prepare participants for future visits on their own.
• Lessons on the importance of native plants for birds and other wildlife. 

Wild Indigo Working with Communities Across the Great Lakes region: 

• In Chicago, IL, by focusing on the areas on the Southeast Side, Wild Indigo staff use nature-based art-making along with hikes, stewardship, and community science to help participants process their experiences and build knowledge and connection to local wildlife and habitats. This work also focuses on creating a deeper connection between nature, mental health, and wellness. 
• In Detroit, MI, Wild Indigo staff helps foster participate-led educational environmental experiences. Working families looking for community for their kids, caregivers looking for restorative experiences, or teens looking to learn more about the environmental field, we build communities of practice and sharing to deepen connections with nature across the city.  
• In Gary, IN, a key project focuses on building community connections at Hatcher Park and marshes around the Little Calumet River. Via promoting native plants to help beautify neighborhood yards, tree planting and care at local schools, and various types of monitoring efforts at the park, Wild Indigo staff worked to elevate healthy local environments as a key community issue.
• In Milwaukee, WI, over multi-week sessions, Wild Indigo trains teens to be leaders who will guide others through outdoor environmental experiences, community nature hikes, and restorative healing circles. Programs encourage mindfulness and coping strategies, key to more effective learning and leadership development.

Program History

Created in 2013, Wild Indigo was developed by Audubon Great Lakes and collaborative partners Eden Place Nature Center, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, to connect African-American and Latino families on the South Side of Chicago to local nature. The program name honors the early days of the collaboration, when during the initial spring visits to Cook County Forest Preserves, the first group of engagement fellows came across wild indigo plants (baptisia australis) everywhere they went. The purple wild flower became a unifying feature of their experience, so when time came to name the program the project partners chose Wild Indigo Nature Explorations. The name references habitat that supports birds, but also a plant that is present in cultural traditions from various parts of the world.

Contact Troy Peters at Troy.Peters@audubon.org for information about coming field trips, indoor programs, or partnering with us.