- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
For the Be a Scientist project, school children, families, community groups and individuals went online to answer three questions: Where is food grown in your community? How are you conserving water? How many pollinators do you see?
People as far north as Del Norte County and as far south as Imperial County participated:
- 10,697 people counted pollinators, including bees, butterflies, birds and even a few bats. (These numbers cannot be added to determine total participants because people could answer more than one question.)
- 9,989 people posted on the map where food is grown in their community – from backyard fruit trees to school gardens to farms
- 8,314 people told how they are conserving water – such as taking shorter showers or letting their lawns turn brown
“It's encouraging to see so many Californians interested in pollinators because they play a vital role in producing food,” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources. “People are conserving water in many different ways, which is important because water is a limited resource even in non-drought years. And, surprisingly, almost half of the people participating in our survey said they grow food.”
Preliminary results show that people counted 37,961 pollinators in a three-minute period. Flies were by far the most abundant, accounting for 79 percent of the pollinators counted.
While most Californians get their food from a store, 45 percent of those responding to the UC survey said they grow their own food too. One-third of the people responding said they get their food only from a store.
To save water, 62 percent of the participants are watering less.
Many people uploaded photos of gardens, pollinators and themselves along with their observations on the map. For details about the survey, visit http://beascientist.ucanr.edu to view the maps and reports.
The statewide science project was part of UC Cooperative Extension's 100-year anniversary celebration. On May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation creating the system to connect scientific advances in agriculture, nutrition and natural resources from public land-grant universities and communities in each state.
“We will continue to celebrate a century of UC Cooperative Extension and its benefits to Californians with events around the state throughout the year,” said Allen-Diaz.
For more information about the UC Cooperative Extension centennial, visit http://ucanr.edu/100.
- Author: Susana C. Bruzzone-Miller
Spring Education & Outreach season is coming to a close. It's time to reflect on all the accomplishments:
- Be a Scientist-over 1200 visitors, youth to adult, joined UC HAREC & CE staff for a fun filled day celebrating 100 years of science and service. The May 8th activities geared for youth were also a big hit with adults. Presentations on topics such as bees, soils, gardening, and water were provided by Master Gardeners and CE Advisors. Kudos to Program Representative, Gwyn Vanoni for leading this amazing event.
- Sustainable You! Two train-the-trainers workshops were completed. HAREC and Desert REC staff as well as community partners were trained on this pertinent curriculum created by Dr. Roslyn Brain, University of Utah. A week long Sustainable You! summer camp scheduled for June will be delivered by UC intern, Chris Massa.
- Student Farm-a successful first year ended with a celebration attended by parents, siblings, school administrators, and Hansen Advisory Board members. Bonnie Weigel, Food Share, CEO presented the Center and students with a certificate of appreciation for the near 800 pounds of produce grown, harvested and donated to the food bank which serves hundreds of individuals and families in need county-wide.
- From Watersheds to Planter Beds-a Water Education Program-developed by REC sponsored intern summer 2013, this timely themed new field trip kicked off to the delight of our young visitors. Individual components of the program will go on the road as 4-H Classroom Outreach offerings in the fall.
- 4-H Field Trip, Classroom & Afterschool Outreach-with the help of our treasured volunteers, Food Corps service member and staff, spring youth outreach soared to 1999 and ages reached ranged from Preschool to 8th grade.
The season is just ending but field staff are already busy preparing the farm for new fall crops and displays. Stay tuned for posts about exciting new research projects beginning over the summer.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Dear Colleagues,
I want to thank all of you for your hard work to make our May 8 UC Cooperative Extension centennial celebration a success statewide. I am so impressed with the way everyone in the Division pulled together and got our partners involved in publicizing the Be a Scientist project and the local events in the counties. We had a tremendous response.
Several news stories about UC Cooperative Extension appeared in newspapers, online, TV and radio outlets. You can see a summary at http://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/?blogpost=13885&blogasset=544 and a list of stories at http://100.ucanr.edu/Media/News_Media.
We held local events in 21 counties where we celebrated our partnerships with local officials, community groups, Farm Bureau members and other stakeholders, who are so important to the success of UC Cooperative Extension. People at these events also participated in the Be a Scientist project, counting pollinators, mapping local sites where food is grown and telling us how they conserve water.
As of Thursday night, 27,693 people had contributed to the crowd-sourced data. You can see their data and photos by clicking on the datapoints on the maps at beascientist.ucanr.edu.
On Twitter, we trended the #CE100 hashtag and @ucanr at the national level for a brief period in the afternoon and trended #beascientist in California for most of the day. We reached nearly 400,000 Twitter accounts for 1,394,997 impressions with tweeting and retweeting from colleagues and friends in California, and outside of the state. Even the White House Food Initiative (@ObamaFoodorama) tweeted about #BeaScientist.
We will continue to celebrate the UC Cooperative Extension centennial throughout the year. I look forward to continuing to leverage the centennial to raise awareness of the many ways ANR's work benefits Californians.
Barbara Allen-Diaz
Vice President
View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.
This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Did you count pollinators on Thursday, May 8?
That was "Be a Scientist Day," sponsored by the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Day of Science and Service to commemorate 100 years of Cooperative Extension.
UC ANR asked that you take three minutes out of your day and count the honey bees, bumble bees and butterflies and other pollinators.
Amina Harris and Art Shapiro did.
In the Good Life Garden.
It's a little treasure located in the courtyard of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on the UC Davis campus.
The Good Life Garden's ever-changing edible landscape features lots of organic and sustainably grown vegetables, herbs and flowers--all for the faculty, students, staff, and visitors to enjoy.
And for pollinators, too.
Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, and Shapiro, a butterfly expert and distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, happened to be enjoying the garden at the same time.
The count: 150 honey bees, two yellow-faced bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii) and one skipper butterfly. Most of them were foraging on the lavender or the catmint.
As a bonus, they saw dozens of lady beetles and immature lady beetles.
A good life. A very good life. A very good life in the Good Life Garden.