Milwaukee Urban Ecology Blog

The High School Outdoor Leader Program is a two-year, environmental career internship for teens who have completed grades 9-10. Outdoor Leaders are trained in 8 areas including education, stewardship, research and community relations. In addition, Outdoor Leaders take two week-long research trips. This year they even organized and ran our 2013 Teen Survival Challenge!

The topic on the first day of the Urban Ecologists Summer Camp in the Menomonee Valley was insects. The honeybees in our rooftop hive gave the campers a special treat by letting them witness one of the more exciting events in the insect world: a bee swarm, which accompanies the birth of a new queen. This would soon become an experience they wouldn’t forget.

Eyes closed and hands outstretched in the smooth water, I could feel the wake form from my palms just before the turbulent white foam of the wave. My body was alive with youthful spirit hardly feeling the cold of the 60 degree water and not at all the bodily aches and pains of 50 years of living. It was a great day to be alive!

What do Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin and our summer interns have in common? They are CommunityScientists! A Community Scientist is someone who engages in the research process in a non-academic setting. People are often surprised to learn that anyone can participate in our research projects, regardless of their age, background or previous experience. All you need is a passion for the natural environment. Community Science volunteers at the Center work with bats, birds, bugs, frogs and toads, small mammals, snakes, turtles, insects, plants and more!

I have been working here at Washington Park for three years now and I must say that they have been three of the most memorable years of my life! I've had the opportunity to meet and work with so many wonderful people — our staff, volunteers and community members — as we continue to grow the Washington Park branch into a wonderful destination for all of Milwaukee. Each day we learn a little bit more about the park and the community. And each day we are connecting kids and families to nature. I never think of our work as a job. It is a way of life with priceless benefits measured in kindness, awareness and "aha" moments.

Along with Community Program Educator Sam Huenink, I had the pleasure of accompanying the Center’s High School Outdoor Leaders on a trip to the Teton Science School in Jackson, Wyoming. I can attest that it was an amazing trip, full of learning and exploration, but I’ll let Patrick, one of our high school participants explain the rest.  Read on for Patrick McLinden's reflection.

It’s finally ready and YOU are invited to celebrate a beautiful new public gem: The Milwaukee Rotary Centennial Arboretum opens on September 28th, 2013! The journey leading up to this event has been rich with energy, dedication, challenges and vision. Glimpses of this vision began in the early 1990s when a group of neighbors imagined what it would be like to transform Riverside Park into a safer, ecologically robust outdoor classroom. They formed Friends of Riverside Park, which later evolved into the Urban Ecology Center. New park surveys and attendance records now show that within the last year there have been over 125,000 visits from students, families, adults and neighbors to the 15 acres of Riverside Park. The arboretum adds 25 acres…

We know there are bats in Riverside Park. Hike a trail at dusk and you may see a Big Brown Bat fly overhead or even hear a few chirps if a bat is closing in on its prey. Because of their nocturnal aerial habits, bats make very difficult study subjects. But recent technological advances are allowing us more detailed glimpses into the habits and distribution of Wisconsin’s bats, including those in Riverside Park.

This month, I’m going to share some insight on one invasive species that is plaguing the Menomonee Valley. Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea biebersteinii) was introduced to the Northwestern United States around 1890 from Europe and Asia and now is found in 48 of 50 states.

Our executive director Ken Leinbach often says “many hands make light work.” This was certainly the case over the course of this past April. With the help of 400 Kohl’s associates who participated in the Kohl’s National Go Green Event we were able to accomplish more work in one month than we could have even imagined.