Your Student Life: Bee the Change

April 1, 2025

Bee the Change by joining your fellow Green Buckeyes for our first Pollinator Planting Party! We’ll be installing several pollinator gardens around Ohio State with plants and flowers that are native to Ohio, making our campus even more beautiful than it already is.

Date: Friday, April 11
Time: shifts run from 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Location: Various locations around campus
Go online for more information and to register.  

Native plants are important not only because they’re pretty, but they’re also naturally resistant to the fluctuations in our climate here in Ohio—so when we have a dry summer or a cold winter, plants that are native to Ohio are naturally resilient and will come back, unlike plants that may be cultivated in other parts of the country. Local plants also help to reduce the amount of fertilizer that is needed to help keep them healthy, which reduces runoff that may end up in our streams, rivers and lakes. Believe it or not, local plants also help to reduce our carbon emissions—like all plants, they help to remove carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, but they also help reduce the amount of maintenance needed, so we’re not running mowers that require fossil fuels.

Pollinators, like bees, butterflies, other insects and birds, also LOVE our native species. Unfortunately, over time, toxic pesticides and other pollutants have reduced the number of many pollinators to the point that they’re appearing on endangered species lists. And though bees have a reputation for stinging, very few are truly poisonous or have venom that is dangerous to humans. Just like grandma used to say: they’re more afraid of us than we are of them! So instead of panicking when you see a bee, calmly walk away, and they won’t BUG you!

Hope to see you there! Any questions, please email the Green Buckeyes Leadership Program at reeves.5@osu.edu

Tom Reeves
Director of Sustainability
Green Buckeyes Program
Office of Student Life