Ecology Club founders Olivia Miner, Austin Crouse, and Paisley Gabel
Article By Megan Melone
Photography by Paisley Gabel, Mckendreeu, and Water Rangers
Paisley Gabel, Austin Crouse and Olivia Miner are showing their love for the Earth through their new Ecology Club. I sat down with two of the new club’s founders to learn more about their mission:
OK, so tell me about yourself. Who wants to go first?
CROUSE: So, I’m Austin, a senior here at McKendree and I’m an environmental science major. I was a transfer student, so I came in my junior year. I am on the board for the ecology club that we just made.
GABEL: I’m Paisley and I’m an environmental science minor, and I’m majoring in business. I just care so much about nature. I really wanted to be part of something that could get me more involved with the environment; I’ve always wanted to make more of an impact, and what better way to do it than to start a club.
“We want to connect with people that are passionate about the Earth…”
Tell me about this new ecology club, what is ecology?
GABEL: So, basically, the definition of ecology is it has to do with studying all living things and how they interact with their environment. We want to connect with people that are passionate about the environment and we want to work toward making an impact and educating others in both an interactive and a science based way.
What inspired you guys to make this?
CROUSE: I think it began with our close knit friend group, who already was pretty passionate about the outdoors and caring about our environment. And we noticed that there weren’t any other clubs that were working to inspire people to make a positive environmental impact. We decided we wanted to try to get people passionate about taking care of our community again.
So, do you guys have any goals for the semester?
CROUSE: We have a lot of ideas. I think the first thing we have planned is we’re going to do a creek cleanup, possibly at Richland Creek and any other creeks if we have time. Also we’d like to do park cleanups, creek cleanups, maybe some fundraisers, possibly looking into doing something for Lebanon.
Richland Creek in Belleville, Illinois
Is there anything else you guys want to add?
GABEL: Definitely to follow the Instagram: bearcat.ecology
CROUSE: At the end of the day what matters is if we can get one more person interested then that’s one more person doing something good for the environment.
Austin Crouse and the Ecology Club at this year’s Activity Fair
