Youth Activity: Invasive English Ivy Removal – West Campus Greenway, UVic

March 6, 2025

Thank you so much for your hard work and enthusiasm:

UVic Biogeography and Uvic Education students, professors, and TAs!

What a fun day we had connecting people to one another and nature, all while restoring habitat! Keep on reading to find impacts, highlights and more from the day…

Impacts

80 UVic students, 3 professors, and 3 TAs engaged
115 hours contributed to habitat restoration
19 students removed invasive plants for the first time
5 cubic metres (about 31 bathtubs full) of invasive plants removed
500 square metres of forest revitalized

Highlights

We spent the day removing invasive English ivy plants from the forest along West Campus Greenway and near Alumni Chip Trail at UVic.
It was great to return to this area after our two previous highly successful community ivy pulls here on December 1st 2024 and January 26th 2025
We had an absolutely beautiful day enjoying the blue sky and sunshine as a clear indicator that spring is near!
Habitat restoration is a very satisfying and empowering aspect of environmental stewardship in which to involve students! Biogeography students received hands-on training and experience while Education students learned about ways to incorporate hands-on learning in an outdoor classroom setting.
Students enjoyed connecting with one another while pulling ivy; check out this video of Mickey sharing their experience of the day!
We had a lot of fun working together as a team to pull and haul out the invasive plants to create space for wildflowers that will bloom here in the coming months!
Students enjoyed snacking on homemade vegan brownies and rice krispy squares as well as fresh fruit & granola bars at the end of class
Professor Gruno and a few students helped us out at the end with packing up: thank you for your help!
Students and passersby enjoyed the additional education provided by our plant signs, learning about identification in a fun, creative way!
The students demonstrated a high level of engagement, ambition, and enthusiasm regarding the impact of the invasive species removal efforts, and an excitement to return to this area of campus to view the wildlife and native plants!

What Students are Saying

I really enjoyed that I was doing something for the community and environment. It made me motivated and appreciative of my surroundings. Thank you so much for making me feel my actions were impactful and that I have the ability to continue to help the environment.

I enjoyed the whole aspect of it. It was a great way to get outside and help the environment. I enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment at the end. There are a lot of great things this program teaches people. There were so many elements and layers that make this program important, for example, getting people outside and together to help the environment is a great way to meet new people with similar interests. Also it teachers people who may not now about the implications of invasive species, and how important it is to get rid of them. Another aspect is learning and teaching about the lands and the indigenous aspects. Overall it was a great experience and felt very rewarding to help out with this cause.

It felt good to be so hands on at making a change and seeing so much progress for yourself. I feel like it is great impact as it spreads so much awareness and curiosity as others walk past and wonder what is happening

Community Investment Partner

A huge THANK YOU to UVic’s Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability for partnering with our charity, Green Teams of Canada, and making this activity possible with their financial support and direction!

Together we are achieving our common goals and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship.

Why We Do This Work

The Greater Victoria Green Team organizes hands-on educational activities that have a positive environmental impact to empower people. Through activities such as invasive plant removals, plantings, litter cleanups and more, we are fostering connections with others and nature so that health and well-being is prioritized, lifelong environmental stewardship is promoted, and community members are enabled to take care of themselves, each other and the places they live. We all have the power to make a difference!

We all experience mental and physical health benefits from spending time in nature, including reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mood, focus, memory and more. While doing so, we can also have a positive impact on the environment as demonstrated through this activity!

Staff Who Made This Activity Possible

Our staff work hard to bring high-quality community activities to you. Partnership building, fundraising, outreach, social media, activity logistics, leading on-the-ground, reporting on impacts and more – they do it all!

Leading activities on the ground is Kaitlin Warren, Program Manager for the Greater Victoria Green Team, whose positive energy and passion for creating change inspire participants to take further action. Kaitlin is supported behind the scenes by Lyda Salatian, GTC Executive Director and Founder.

Together the Green Teams of Canada staff are fostering communities of environmental stewards and contributing to a brighter, greener future for all.