Grants: Environmental Style

Over the years, the Indiana Humanities grant program has supported a number of projects related to the environment and environmental issues. In honor of our exciting new endeavors with Next Indiana Campfires, here’s a look at some of the projects that fueled our passion for Indiana’s landscapes and environment.

• In 2007, a grant to Marian University helped to fund Indiana’s Hidden Treasures, through the Historic Preservation Education Grant program, jointly sponsored with Indiana Landmarks. A website was developed for the benefit of educators, tourists, gardeners, historians, preservationists, conservationists, and others interested in learning about Indiana’s historic gardens and landscapes. Hillforest, Oldfields and the Gene Stratton Porter State Historic Site were featured, along with many other Indiana places.
• Also in 2007, Indiana Humanities funded an innovative project at Indiana University South Bend, “Shakespeare, Science, and the Songs of Whales.” This program was the centerpiece of a timely IUSB campus theme on poetry and environmental science. Seminars and a performance of whale songs were highlights of the initiative.
• The Cardinal Stage Company of Bloomington sponsored a 2010 grant project around John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath. To accompany a dramatization of the novel, the Cardinal Stage Company presented student matinees and a teacher workshop on the play’s themes, history, creation, production and environmental and scientific context.
• In 2014, the Switzerland County Historical Society sponsored a lecture by Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature, on botanists and gardening in 18th century England and America to cap a series of programs on historic sites and gardens in the county.
• Through a grant to the University of Southern Indiana in October 2015, art historian Lucy Winters Durkin used an interdisciplinary approach to present a program on the literary contributions of John James Audubon, her great-great-great grandfather.

Curious? Indiana Humanities offers a competitive grants program which awards funding to Indiana not-for-profit organizations, schools, and other institutions. We divide grants into two categories: Humanities Initiative Grants and Historic Preservation Education Grants. Learn more here.

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Next Indiana Campfires is a unique way to connect nature, literature and Indiana’s Bicentennial. The program is supported by the Efroymson Family Fund, the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust and Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfires. Indiana Humanities is supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc. and the National Endowment of the Humanities. 

This post is part of the weekly blog series devoted to the initiative. Check back every Tuesday to learn more about Indiana’s great environmental literature, find out interesting facts about Hoosier stewardship, get all the latest program details and more.