Green & Healthy Schools
Through the Green & Healthy Schools program, Reflo works with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and other partners to replace problematic schoolyard asphalt with green infrastructure—vibrant, nature-inspired landscapes that capture rainwater and reduce neighborhood flooding, increase urban biodiversity with trees and plants, and nurture students’ curiosity and critical thinking about our relationship to the environment. Reflo catalyzes an intentional community-driven design process that focuses on far more than managing water. These beautiful schoolyards transform the urban landscape surrounding the next generation of Milwaukee’s youth into a healthier one they—and the surrounding communities—deserve.
Innovative Placemaking & Rainwater Harvesting
Through our Innovative Placemaking & Rainwater Harvesting program, Reflo thinks outside the box to help neighborhoods create meaningful spaces that enhance urban life. Collecting and managing rainwater is often the beginning of these projects but never the end. Working with the City of Milwaukee and various other partners including community-based nonprofits, Reflo has helped to transform spaces as diverse as a neighborhood pocket park (integrating an underground cistern beneath a new performing stage), a popular farmers market (pioneering stormwater management of the adjacent street into an old building foundation), and a post-industrial brownfield transformed into a verdant research and demonstration destination to showcase Milwaukee’s green infrastructure leadership.
MilwaukeE Water Stories
The Milwaukee Water Stories program ties together Reflo’s mission-driven work, helping Milwaukee residents of all ages understand water as a valuable resource through engaging digital media products: interactive maps showcasing data and stories from community partners, a role-playing game inspired by Milwaukee’s water history, an adventure app like Pokemon GO for Milwaukee’s hidden water stories—and even the technologically marvelous Virtual Water Table that uses and Augmented Reality sandbox to teach watershed dynamics through a tactile experience. Reflo curates these and other resources for educators, students, partners, and motivated members of the public. It’s all about expanding Milwaukee’s “Water Choir” into a veritable “Water Chorus.”
The Workshop
The Workshop Program began with the creation and production of the Outdoor Discovery Cart. Since then, it has grown into a full woodworking studio space that produces 12 carts per year, benches made out of locally sourced wood, signs for redeveloped schoolyards and more.
Environmental Interns
Each year Reflo hires high school students for hands-on learning with tradespeople and content experts. The Environmental Interns are exposed to careers in construction, design, engineering, policy, communications, and environmental education. The interns learn about green infrastructure by making and maintaining it, participate in workshops and community events, and create projects using multiple woodworking tools and equipment to support Reflo’s other program areas. The Environmental Intern program is evolving for the 2021-’22 school year, so check back for details.
Reflo is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Milwaukee, Wis. with a mission of catalyzing sustainable water use, green infrastructure, and equitable water resource management that supports triple-bottom-line outcomes grounded in strong partner relationships.
This is accomplished through education, research, and implementation of water projects that are valuable for individuals, local communities, and the organizations that support them.
Reflo believes that green infrastructure design and water management is not just about decreasing the impacts of stormwater. It is also an opportunity to create meaningful spaces that enhance urban life and provide a better education for the next generation, grounded in problem-solving, creativity, and working together.