Center for Community & Citizen Science Blog
Internship Opportunity, 2024-2025 Academic Year
The UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science is hiring 1-2 student interns for the UC Davis fall quarter with the potential to extend through the 2024-2025 academic year. Apply on Handshake, Job #9266844.
Shifting Tides: Piloting the MPA Watch Intercept Survey in Southern California
Here’s one inescapable reality of community and citizen science: there are many things that you simply cannot learn until you’ve been on the ground with people, doing work side by side in the field. No matter how much you plan and prepare, no matter how many logistical and technical realities you try to anticipate, things will come up once you get out in the world and start testing out your ideas. Adjustments will be needed.
Collabinar: Equity in Community Science
September 25, 2024
Creating welcoming, inclusive, and equitable projects for project leaders, institutions, and CCS groups
September 25, 2024
1:00 – 2:00 PM PST
Register here.
Conference: North American Association for Environmental Education
November 5-9, 2024
The 2024 North American Association for Environmental Education Annual Conference and Research Symposium will be held in person in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this November 5 through 9. The Center for Community and Citizen Science will represent our research and projects at both the research symposium and regular conference.
CCSiC Fellow Highlight: #iluvbugs! observing backyard biodiversity after dark
Providing a framework for citizen scientists to collect their own data, on their own time, through demonstration and gradual release of responsibility
Backyard biodiversity represents an opportunity for exposure to nature
Scan your eyes through your backyard or a city garden and you’ll get a snapshot of a biological community in time. At first glance, your eyes may alight on a cluster of colorful flowers or a bumble bee busily moving from bloom to bloom. With luck, you may see a bird or two snacking on the unseen arthropods or tiny seeds ferried about by wind or animal. Much of the biodiversity in your backyard is actively hiding from you—or your vertebrate peers—through miraculous camouflage.
2024 Summer Institutes
History Social Science Project
As part of our ongoing collaboration with the Sacramento Area Science Project, this summer our Youth Education Program Manager, Peggy Harte, helped co-facilitate two week-long summer institutes in collaboration with the California History Social Science Project. Both institutes focused on intertwining the stories of people and the land, deepening our understanding of the history of place.
2024 Impact Report 2024 available online
Sharing over a decade of the Center's innovative CCS research and programming
The Center for Community and Citizen Science is thrilled to announce the release of our 2024 Impact Report, a comprehensive look at the strides made over the past decade toward achieving our mission. This report is both a reflection of our efforts and accomplishments, and a testament to the collective power of our community, partners, and supporters.
Collabinar: California Biodiversity Day
August 28, 2024
Engaging the Public in Conservation Through California Biodiversity Day
August 28, 2024
1:00 – 2:00 PM PST
Register here.
CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Reflections on Project Phoebe
Collaborating with community scientists to understand impacts of urbanization on a songbird species
Community scientists play an essential eole in studying urban wildlife. As our world becomes increasingly urbanized—over half the world’s human population currently lives in cities, with that percentage expected to grow to 68% by 2050— cities are often home to fewer animal species than natural areas. The species that do live in cities face a variety of challenges that may limit their survival and reproduction, including
Project Update: Caring for Clear Lake project closing reflections
Looking back at the last two years
With the Caring for Clear Lake project coming to an end this July, the UC Davis team reflects on collaborating with Tribes and the community in co-developing environmental education materials that integrate local participatory science projects. We share how the community engagement process evolved and guided the frameworks used for structuring the materials.
Environmental Superheroes of the ELA Classroom Podcast Series
The Environmental Superheroes of the ELA Classroom podcast collection highlights stories of California TK-12 educators who teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking through the lens of environmental literacy and justice, giving a glimpse into what this type of work might look like in TK-12 classrooms.
The Center’s Peggy Harte co-developed these podcasts and snapshots with other CAELI members, Tara Kajtaniak and Cheney Munson.
Dispatch from Heidi Ballard
Where in the world is Heidi Ballard, you might wonder? I’ve been extra privileged to be spending my several months of sabbatical this spring learning and sharing about how community and citizen science is institutionalized, designed, implemented, and evaluated all over Europe…especially in the United Kingdom, Austria, and Denmark where I’ve been based for a few weeks or months each.
Project Update: Human Activities Monitoring in Natural Spaces
In March of this year, Ryan and Jadda traveled to Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties to meet with community partners whose work focuses on monitoring human activities in natural spaces but in different geographical contexts.
M.V. Eitzel appointed Associate Professional Researcher at UC Davis Feminist Research Institute
We are pleased and proud to announce that Dr. Melissa (M.V.) Eitzel has been appointed as an Associate Professional Researcher at the UC Davis Feminist Research Institute. This career step is a fitting reflection of Eitzel’s high quality academic scholarship, as well as her deep commitment to collaboration. Eitzel first joined the Center for Community and Citizen Science as a postdoctoral researcher, and has since worked with us on a variety of projects, including MPA Watch data analysis, and dam removal and watershed restoration.
Feature: Essential Tips for Collaborative Grant-Writing with Community Partners
Ryan Meyer, UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science, shares on Public Scholarship and Engagement to convey his advice and guidance on the particular challenges and struggles when writing grant proposals with partners outside of the university.
CCSiC Fellow Highlight: Learning about coyotes in San Francisco from their scat
In recent decades, humans and animals have increasingly co-occurred in high densities in urban areas. Although declines in biodiversity are associated with urbanization, numerous species have adjusted to and thrive in cities. The success of urban animals is largely attributed to the expansion of their diet to include human-provided food, resulting in frequent conflicts with people. These conflicts have wide-ranging financial, health, and ecosystem-level consequences, necessitating a deeper understanding of organismal adaptation to human resources.
New Report: CCS in Oregon Marine Reserves
Community and citizen science (CCS) has played a role in marine reserve monitoring throughout the State of Oregon for more than a decade.
City Nature Challenge 2024 Recap
Another City Nature Challenge is in the books! We love to see the iNaturalist participation across the Sacramento Region and share in the excitement of discovery. This year’s official results are:
7,218 observations
1,602 species
686 observers
CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency
A Community Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi
Project overview
In August of last year, I submitted a proposal to the Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship program. This collaborative project is titled “Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency: A Community Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi”. Through this project, we seek to address a global environmental and social issue -wildfire- through a place-based, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining, curriculum.
Event: #iluvbugs City Nature Challenge BioBlitz
Saturday, April 27, 2024
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
UCD Arboretum Wyatt Deck
Register here