The holidays are around the corner! We sure hope you'll enjoy time relaxing, spending time in nature, and connecting with people you care about.

Looking for some holiday gift ideas? Give the gift of a UEC experience! Plus, you'll be supporting our mission of connecting people to nature and each other. Urban Ecology Center gifts are gifts that keep on giving!  Check them out:

As holiday shopping season nears, a collaboration of over 40 Milwaukee-area nonprofits, including the Urban Ecology Center, are joining together to emphasize the importance of supporting our communities through an effort called Giving First on Tuesday, November 23rd.

The Giving First date flips the script by coming one week before Giving Tuesday, which traditionally falls after Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber-Monday shopping and has been a day of giving for many nonprofits. Local nonprofits put the community first all year long and hope the community will put them first this giving season.

The path that led Chamong Xiong to the Urban Ecology Center this summer has been a winding one. His story of being called back to the land is an inspiration for all of us to do the same and cultivate a meaningful connection with the outside world. Even if it means taking risks and leaping into the unknown to find it.

The Urban Ecology Center hosted our 7^th annual HKE MKE from September 25 through October 2, 2021! Hikers had over 30 hikes to choose from including a sunrise hike in the Menomonee Valley, a history hike in Washington Park and a hike and watercolor painting session in Riverside Park.

Through the combined efforts of all of our hikers and some generous matching donors, over $57,000 was raised! We are humbled by the generosity of our participants, and by the generosity of their friends and family. HKE MKE raised important funds to support the Urban Ecology Center's mission to connect people in cities to nature and each other.

“My daughter and I are not outdoor people. UEC is an organization that helped us see things differently.” Catrina Crane laughed as she explained how her relationship with the outdoors has changed during an interview with the UEC discussing her experiences as a member. She began by recalling how she first became involved with the Urban Ecology Center, “I have a daughter who is 18 now, but at the time she was maybe 6, and I chaperoned one of her school trips [to the UEC] and it was really cool to see the kids work on plants and things like that. I was an up and coming Girl Scout leader so I kind of piggybacked off of what I experienced during that trip and brought my troop back to UEC a couple of times. It was a lot of fun! From there I started putting my daughter into some of the summer camps.”

Paige Simenz fondly recalls her experiences as a kid in the Urban Ecology Center summer camps. Growing up in nearby Shorewood, she says, “I had this sense that whenever I was here, I was exploring, I was doing big things, I was making scientific discoveries. And that stayed with me throughout my entire life.”

Summer at the Urban Ecology Center is a time where community engagement is at its peak. From Land Stewardship, Community Programs to children’s summer camps, the Urban Ecology Center grows tremendously. To keep up with the increase in activity summer brings, interns are recruited to help fill in the gaps. With 26 total interns hired this summer to fill an assortment of positions, they bring a fresh perspective to the team and gain valuable experience to help propel them into future careers.

“Why should I look up?” Bob Bonadurer, Planetarium Director of the Milwaukee Public Museum, rhetorically asked this question during an interview that the Urban Ecology Center hosted with him and some members of the Urban Stargazers. Bob marveled that the universe is the ultimate connection, and that looking up and basking in the vastness of it all is incredible.

We have all been and continue to be affected by the ongoing pandemic and the new lifestyle and norms that have come with it. Children have been uniquely challenged in this respect - they have had to adapt to learning virtually, away from their peers, and the structure a typical school environment provides. This last year, more than ever, getting children outdoors and in nature was critical. The Urban Ecology Center made this possible by hosting several safe Summer Camp programs for kids of varying ages and interests. Children who attended last year’s camps were able to reconnect to the constants that are nature, friends, and community during a time filled with so much uncertainty.

The vernal equinox is upon us! And with it, comes longer days, shorter nights, and (eventually) warmer temperatures. March 20th officially marks 2021’s first day of spring when the hours of daylight and night are roughly equal. This makes sense, given the Latin roots to this event’s name; “equi” stemming from “equal,” and “nox” stemming from “night”: “equality of night and day.” From here, the days will continue to grow longer until the summer solstice on June 21st - the longest day of the year. For this reason, the spring equinox often represents new life and new beginnings as the light overtakes the dark. After months of cold and snow, when many animals hibernate and plants senesce, life returns.