While you are on campus this Spring looking for birds, you might want to try out the brand new Northwestern University Tree Tour (NUTT). NUTT is a GPS-aligned audio tour of the trees on the Evanston campus, providing spoken commentary on individual trees by professors, facilities personnel, scientists, and campus historians to tell the stories of specific trees and how they connect to both Northwestern’s history and to broader ecological systems.
NUTT is the perfect way to explore the history and ecology of the Evanston campus: not only is it fun and informative, but it is a treat for the ears, with music and sound design accompanying the expert narration. Because the tour is built around specific campus trees that are each individually linked to GPS-aligned audio content, the tour is easy and flexible and can be explored in multiple sessions or configurations. You will walk away from NUTT with a new appreciation for the tree and plant species on campus and their relationship to Northwestern history, as well as broader environmental issues and ecological systems!
NUTT exists on the free downloadable mobile app ECHOES. The direct link to the NUTT desktop page is here.
NUTT was supported by the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy’s Funding Program for Student Entrepreneurship, and was spearheaded by students and faculty in the School of Communication’s MA in Sound Arts and Industries. NUTT was proposed by Sound Arts faculty Jacob Smith and Stephan Moore, and the recording and editing were done by Sound Arts student Maya Reter.
NUTT features commentary by Dr. Eli Suzukovich III, a lecturer in the Environmental Policy and Culture Program at Northwestern and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research; Stephen A. Camburn, Groundskeeper Foreman of the Evanston campus; Prof. Nyree Zerega, the director of the graduate program in Plant Biology and Conservation at Northwestern; and Kevin Leonard, Northwestern University Historian.
Audio tours are a powerful medium for fostering engagement with the deeper history and broader social and ecological connections of a given place, and in 2019, Northwestern professors Patty Loew and Stephan Moore (MA in Sound Arts) created an “Indigenous Tour” of the Evanston campus, which allowed users to visit fourteen landmarks on Northwestern’s campus and learn more about the past histories and present realities of Native peoples, places, and events and how they are tied to Northwestern University.
NUTT’s visual design is by RTVF grad Cory Lippens, and Kat Caribeaux provided organizational coordination. Special thanks to Cria Kay of sustainNU.