Topsoil at BGSU is helping students learn about the environment and making the university a more sustainable place.
Tristan Bolden, a junior applied health science major, is the president and co-founder of Topsoil. Bolden came up with the idea for Topsoil during his sophomore year and wanted to bring it to life shortly after.
“I knew that I wanted to make an impact. Sustainability, environmental education, those types of things are something that I hold close to my character and what I value,” Bolden said.
While Bolden had joined other environmental groups, he had his own ideas for how sustainability could be implemented on campus.
“It wasn’t quite what I envisioned for the things I wanted to bring to campus. So, I thought maybe I can make my own,” he said.
Bolden shared his idea with Miracle Bowman, a sophomore environmental policy and analysis major with a specialization in sustainable management. Together, they brainstormed what their organization on campus would look like.
“We want to do environmental education, sustainability and botanic. We wanted to provide botanical resources. Just doing that through educational events as well as community service,” Bowman said.
Topsoil is a service-based organization that focuses on creating community service opportunities for students.
“Bringing BGSU students service opportunities that they also get to learn from and actively practice sustainability with,” Bolden said.
Bowman said Topsoil has held events where students had the opportunity to give back to the community in different ways.
“We’ve been trying to implement more community service events. We did cleanups at the stadium and we did tree planting. With doing that, we were able to get the community involved as well,” Bowman said.
Along with community service, Topsoil hosts educational events to teach environmental issues and history. Bowman said the club’s last event celebrated Black History Month.
“We taught people about Black environmentalists and what Black environmental justice means to Black history and environmental history,” Bowman said. “Environmental injustice is something that should be talked about more.”
Bolden explained why Topsoil chose to emphasize the Black community for the event.
“If you look at a lot of the environmental organizations on campus, there’s not much diversity within it. Topsoil wasn’t curated for the Black community, but because we are Black, it paved the way for Black students to get more involved in that,” Bolden said.
Bolden also said Topsoil is a space for any student at BGSU to learn more about sustainability and the environment.
“Topsoil isn’t exclusive to any majors, groups, ethnicities or anything like that,” Bolden said.
Topsoil has the goal of making BGSU as a whole more sustainable. Bolden explained a study he found that shows a more environmentally friendly campus can help the university.
“[Princeton Review] said at least 75% of students’ choice leans towards a more sustainable campus when choosing a college,” Bolden said. “Bringing more sustainability options, more green spaces, things like that to BGSU could in turn increase our enrollment.”
Bowman said the club aims to be a space for students to come for help when taking care of their plants.
“Providing people with resources to take care of any plants that they may have at home. They could bring that in and that’s something we want to start incorporating as well,” Bowman said.
Topsoil has many events planned for the future and wants to see what works best for their club and its members.
“Because this is a new organization, everything we do is kind of a test trial. But if it works, we’re going to keep it,” Bolden said.
Bowman wants to hear from students on how Topsoil can benefit them.
“Just hearing other people’s feedback on what they want to see from us. How we can be better, and how we can better provide for the community,” Bowman said.
Topsoil’s Instagram page (topsoil_bg) has updates on upcoming events as well as “Topsoil Tips” which are posted every Thursday to help students stay informed on how to help the environment.
