|
When Bernie Dahl came to Purdue University in 1972 to pursue a master’s degree in natural resources, it was all part of a master plan.
 |
Bernie Dahl |
Dahl, who had just earned a bachelor’s of science in landscape architecture at Iowa State, wanted to incorporate environmental sensitivity into his work. When he joined Purdue’s landscape architecture faculty in 1974, Dahl brought this environmental emphasis into the classroom. He began offering students service-learning projects that help protect and enhance natural resources.
Over the past 20 years, Dahl has led students in more than 150 service-learning projects in 120 communities, providing design and planning assistance for watershed improvement, mined land reclamation, trails and greenways, community forestry and rural preservation. “I’m proud of what our students have helped create in these communities,” says Dahl, who was chair of Purdue’s nationally ranked landscape architecture program from 2001-07.
Many of these projects have been for communities along Indiana rivers, including the Wabash, St. Joe, Maumee and Kankakee. And several have been related to successful development of the Wabash and Erie Canal Park in Delphi, Ind. It was Dahl’s students who proposed the later-implemented park and trail locations and restoring water to the canal. For his years of dedication to the Wabash River corridor, last year, Dahl received a national River Hero award from the River Network and the Citizen of the Year award from the Wabash River Heritage Corridor Commission.
|
