- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Feb. 28 is the last day to donate to the current crowdfunding efforts of the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day/Month, Honey Bee Haven and the California Master Beekeeper Program.
- Biodiversity Museum Day/Month: https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
- Honey Bee Haven: http://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/
project/24323 - Master Beekeepers: http://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/
project/24314
“Last year our in-person event occurred just before the global pandemic. Together 13 biological collections welcomed 4,000 people to campus. It involved nearly 300 students, staff and faculty committed to science communication and outreach. This February it had to take place virtually with live webinar talks and pre-recorded activities throughout the month, including some content in Spanish.”
"Our goal right now is to get 100 individual donations by Saturday when the crowd fund ends," Yang said.
Those participating in the 2021 Biodiversity Museum Day/Month:
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
- Viticulture and Enology Collection
Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology founded and directs the California Master Beekeeper Program. Wendy Mather serves as the program manager.
The program is raising funds for an online, accessible, 'Beekeeper's Apprentice' course that is educational, engaging and entertaining for all ages.
From the website: "Your donation is a legacy to help ensure the health and longevity of our honey bees. Money raised for our "Beekeepers' Apprentice" course is an investment in science-based knowledge relative to our food security and the health of our environment now and for future generations - let's educate as many people as we can about the plight of our precious honey bees. Together we can bee the change!"
As of Friday at 10:30 a.m., the donations amounted to $16,823 or 67 percent of the $25,000 goal.
Elina Lastro Niño serves as the director of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre garden on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. Christine Casey manages the garden and is spearheading the crowdfunding project.
From the website: "Our goal is $5000 to purchase plants, irrigation supplies, and tools for the Haven to continue our vital mission of inspiration and education about bees and the plants that support them."
As of Friday at 10:30, the donations amounted to $2345 or 46 percent of the $5000 goal.
For more information, see their websites or the Feb. 1 news story on the Department of Entomology and Nematology website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Crowdfund UC Davis began today (Feb. 1) for the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day (Month), the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven and the California Master Beekeeper Program and will continue through the month of February.
The project is described as "where alumni, students, parents and friends can make donations to support innovative projects that propel student engagement, new research discoveries, and efforts to expand UC Davis impact on California and the world."
Capsule information from the sites:
UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day (Month)
Project coordinators are Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology; Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collectionand Rachel Alsheikh, a junior specialist and curatorial assistant at the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
In its 10th year, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day remains a free, annual, educational event for the community. Each year thousands of visitors stroll the campus on the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend, visiting UC Davis' biological collections and meeting and talking with scientists. Participating collections include, but are not limited to
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
- Viticulture and Enology Collection
This year, throughout the month of February, we will be offering a virtual “BioDivDay” with lectures, talks, and demos from experts, but we want our student interns to have the opportunity to take the lead on producing 15 cross-disciplinary videos and educational activities. These videos and activities will broaden our audience and will aim to reach underserved populations. Creating these resources and helping to plan for a future in-person event will solidify our students' science communication skills--skills that are crucial in this day and age. Your support will enable our diverse group of students to have a meaningful and lasting impact as science communicators for Biodiversity Museum Day.
Donations will not only help us sustain the free, in-person event, but it will also enable our student interns to take science outreach to a whole new level. Using their science communication skills, our interns will create 15 themed videos and associated educational activities related to Biodiversity Museum Day. The goal of these educational resources is to reach new audiences and to connect people from all walks of life to science and the biodiversity surrounding them.
To donate, click here:
https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, serves as the director of the Haven. Chris Casey manages the half-acre garden, located on Bee Biology Road next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. It is part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Like to eat? Thank a bee! These hard-working animals pollinate nearly 90 percent of all flowering plants, including the fruits, nuts, and vegetables that make our diets tasty and nutritious. Bees also pollinate the plants that create food and habitat for birds and most other wildlife. It's clear: healthy, abundant bee populations are vital.
But bees are in trouble and they need our help. California has about 1600 native bee species; along with the non-native honey bee all are pollinators. Bees need flowers, and the Haven is a source of information and inspiration about what and how to plant. From a single flowerpot to acres, we can all do something to help.
Our goal is $5000 to purchase plants, irrigation supplies, and tools for the Haven to continue our vital mission of inspiration and education about bees and the plants that support them.
To donate, click here:
https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24323
California Master Beekeeper Program
Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology founded and directs the California Master Beekeeper Program. Wendy Mather serves as the program manager.
The California Master Beekeeper Program at UC Davis is raising funds for an online, accessible, 'Beekeeper's Apprentice' course that is educational, engaging and entertaining for all ages.
Learners will explore the intersection of honey bees, beekeepers, farmers, food diversity and security and become beginner beekeepers and honey bee ambassadors, equipped to explain the basics of beekeeping and honey bee biology, and to convey the devastating effects of pesticides, pests, pathogens, habitat destruction, and climate change on our beloved bees. The online course is a series of science-based modules in which you and your avatar, the Beekeepers' Apprentice explore and earn badges for the knowledge and skill you acquire about honey bee biology, beekeeping basics, equipment and PPE, public safety, and the future of farming and food security. You'll get a ‘bees-eye' view of what it's like to be a honey bee through video and audio from inside the hive, and examine the benefits and challenges faced by today's beekeepers and honey bees. This course will be accessible to learners across all demographics so kids and grownups can enjoy "pollinating" and sharing the science behind the relationship between honey bees and our fresh healthy food.
Your donation is a legacy to help ensure the health and longevity of our honey bees. Money raised for our "Beekeepers' Apprentice" course is an investment in science-based knowledge relative to our food security and the health of our environment now and for future generations - let's educate as many people as we can about the plight of our precious honey bees. Together we can bee the change!
Please support the California Master Beekeeper Program, where our current priority is an online, fully accessible, fun, science-based course to raise awareness of our dependence on honey bees for the many delicious and healthy foods we sometimes take for granted! Thank you for your support and consideration in bee-coming a honey bee ambassador and environmental steward!
To donate, click here:
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It will not be a day--it will be a month, the month of February.
It will not be a walk-around event--it will be virtual.
Traditionally billed as a “free, educational event for the community where visitors get to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists "and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us,” it's a science-based event showcasing the diversity of life, according to Biodiversity Museum Day coordinator Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
Over the last nine years, it took place the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend. Last year more than 4000 attended.
Information on the event is being posted on the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day website as plans unfold. The 12 museums or collections participating in the virtual program this year via Zoom webinars, Facebook programs and YouTube will be:
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
The live talks and demonstrations and pre-recorded talks and activities are being posted on the Biodiversity Museum Day/Month website.
Live talks will encompass such topics as heliconius butterflies, bees and gardens, orchid bees, plants in the Botanical Conservatory, Asian giant hornets (aka murder hornets), ants, yeasts, mammal specimen preparations and raptors.
Pre-recorded programs will cover bee diversity, millipedes, herbariums and marine life, as well as how to make a bee condo and how to prepare insects (spread the wings of butterflies and moths) for display, among other subjects.
All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, Yang said, but the collections are not always accessible to the public. More information is pending on the website at http://biodiversitymuseumday.edu, and on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, @BioDivDay.
The UC Biodiversity Museum Day/Month program is participating in Crowdfund UC Davis "where alumni, students, parents and friends can make donations to support innovative projects that propel student engagement, new research discoveries, and efforts to expand UC Davis impact on California and the world." The funding program will continue through the end of February.
To donate, click here:
https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The special forum, set from noon to 1 p.m. in Room 194 of Young Hall, is a new addition to Biodiversity Museum Day, a 9 a.m.-to 4 p.m. event showcasing 13 museums or collections. The event is free and family friendly.
The slate of speakers:
- Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, will discuss “Are Our Butterflies in Trouble?” (“Yes, they mostly are in trouble,” he says. He will discuss “How do we know and why?”)
- Gabrielle Nevitt, professor of animal behavior (on leave), will speak on “How Do Sub-Antarctic Seabirds Find their Food in the Vast Ocean?” (“They follow their nose," she says, "and sometimes it gets them into trouble.”)
- Melanie Truan, research ecologist, UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, will cover “Biodiversity Studies at the UC Davis Wildlife Museum.” Biodiversity studies, she says, “can tell us a lot about the world and how it is functioning. This is especially important today where the influence of Homo sapiens is having profound impacts on the planet and its inhabitants.” She will touch on some of the ways that the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology incorporates biodiversity into its research.
Art Shapiro
Prominent lepidopterist Art Shapiro, in his 49th year of service to UC Davis, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1971, first working in the former Department of Zoology. He has been monitoring California butterfly faunas since 1972. (See his website.) Shapiro is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, the Royal Entomological Society (U.K.) and the Explorers Club. Shapiro has authored some 300 scientific publications and the book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions. He has mentored 17 doctoral students and a similar number of master's students. Shapiro received his bachelor of arts degree in biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and his doctorate in entomology from Cornell in 1970.
Gabrielle Nevitt
Gabrielle Nevitt, a 25-year member of the UC Davis faculty, is a leader in the field of chemical ecology. She is known for her pioneering work in the sub-Antarctic that established a climate regulator, dimethyl sulphide, as a keystone foraging cue in marine ecosystems.
Her research frequently appears in leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been featured in many documentaries, including David Attenborough's “Life of Birds.” She is spotlighted in a popular Audubon piece, "Birds Can Smell, and One Scientist is Leading the Charge to Prove It."
Nevitt has served as a contributing lecturer in the International Course on Sensory Ecology at Lund University in Sweden since 2008 and was the first woman ever to chair the Scientific Advisory Board for the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Germany.
A graduate of Stanford University, Nevitt received her doctorate in zoology from the University of Washington, and served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. She has mentored some 60 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral scholars in her lab, as well as serving in advisory roles to graduate students at other institutions.
Melanie Truan
Melanie Truan, 16 years in her current position, received her doctorate in ecology in 2004 from UC Davis, studying the plants and animals of Putah Creek and laying the groundwork for a long-term research program that continues today. She is particularly interested in the art of eco-investigation, “a sort of detective work that employs in-depth observation and species monitoring to infer the structure and function of ecosystems, the results of which can be used to devise habitat reconciliation strategies and management objectives.” She holds a bachelor's degree in biology/environmental studies (1996) from UC Santa Cruz.
Truan says she is a self-professed "biophiliac" (E. O. Wilson 1984), bearing a strong urge to affiliate with other forms of life.
UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day
The ninth annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, an annual science-based event, is billed as a “free, educational event for the community where visitors get to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists from undergraduate students to staff to emeritus professors and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us,” according to Biodiversity Museum Day coordinator Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Last year's event drew more than 4000 visitors. The event is always held the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend.
The schedule is online at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/schedule.html.
Participating museums or collections and the hours they will be open:
- The Botanical Conservatory, the Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive, will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The following five will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:
- Arboretum and Public Garden, Shields Oak Grove, alongside the Vet School, Garrod Drive on campus
- Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 and Main Hall of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394 and Mail Hall, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
Two collections will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.:
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
- Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
These four will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:
- Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
- Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
- Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
All 13 sites are within walking distance except for the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road and the Raptor Center on Old Davis Road. Further information, including a campus map, is available on the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You can do that and more at the ninth annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 15 when 13 museums and collections showcase their projects. The event, to take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., is free and family friendly. All 13 sites are within walking distance except for the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road and the Raptor Center on Old Davis Road.
The science-based event, always held the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend, features the diversity of life. It is billed as a “free, educational event for the community where visitors get to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists from undergraduate students to staff to emeritus professors and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us,” according to Biodiversity Museum Day coordinator Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology. The schedule is online at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/schedule.html. Last year's event drew more than 4000 visitors. Schedules vary from collection to collection.
The schedule:
- The Botanical Conservatory, the Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive, will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The following five will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:
- Arboretum and Public Garden, Shields Oak Grove, alongside the Vet School, Garrod Drive on campus
- Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 and Main Hall of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394 and Mail Hall, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
- Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
Two collections will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.:
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
- Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
These five will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:
- Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
- Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
- Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
- Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
New this year will be public talks from noon to 1 p.m. in 194 Young Hall. The slate of speakers (each will give a 15-minute presentation and questions and answers will follow):
- Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, will discuss “Are Our Butterflies in Trouble?” (“Yes, they mostly are in trouble,” he says. He will discuss “How do we know and why?”)
- Gabrielle Nevitt, professor of animal behavior (on leave), will speak on “How Do Sub-Antarctic Seabirds Find their Food in the Vast Ocean?” (“They follow their nose," she says, "and sometimes it gets them into trouble.”)
- Melanie Truan, research ecologist, UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, will cover “Biodiversity Studies at the UC Davis Wildlife Museum.” Biodiversity studies, she says, “can tell us a lot about the world and how it is functioning. This is especially important today where the influence of Homo sapiens is having profound impacts on the planet and its inhabitants.” She will touch on some of the ways that the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology incorporates biodiversity into its research.
All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, Yang said, but the collections are not always accessible to the public. Maps, signs and guides will be available at all the collections, and also online at http://biodiversitymuseumday.edu, and on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, @BioDivDay.
Capsule information on each:
Melissa Cruz Hernandez, outreach and leadership program manager, Arboretum and Public Garden, notes that the Arboretum activities will all be at the Shields Oak Grove, alongside the School of Veterinary Medicine, Garrod Drive. This is a change from last year. The Arboretum Ambassadors are planning fun-filled oak tree conservation activities the whole family will enjoy. “Learn about the many contributions oaks make to sustaining habitat biodiversity, what UC Davis and the Arboretum and Public Garden are doing to protect the trees, and win prizes for participating in the games at the Shields Oak Grove!”
Hernandez announced the following Arboretum activities:
- GATEways Outreach Ecological group: Learn what it is like to live as an oak tree through a life size board game and win prizes! Explore the ecological impacts oaks have in our community and discover about how the changing climate is impacting this important species.
- GATEways Outreach Humanities group: Did you know the US Constitution was signed in oak gall ink? Join us and try out oak gall ink for yourself, and engage in mindfulness activities.
- Museum Education: Take a self-guide tour through our iconic oak grove and learn about the unique characteristics of 12 of our favorite trees.
- Emily Griswold Tour: Join oak expert and Director of GATEways Horticulture, Emily Griswold, on an engaging tour of the oak grove. Uncover behind the scenes information about the grove and get your quercus questions answered.
Bohart Museum of Entomology, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
TheBohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building onCrocker Lane, is the home of a global collection of nearly 8 million insect specimens. Insect scientists will meet with the public to help them explore insects and spiders (arachnids). Highlights will include the 500,000-specimen butterfly/moth collection, curated by entomologist Jeff Smith. The Bohart maintains a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas. Also, the UC Davis Library set up a Mary Foley Benson exhibit in the Academic Surge hallway. It will be up ponly for the month of February. "The library, is, of course full of special collections including very important research materials on bees and on nematodes," noted Tabatha Yang, the Bohart education and outreach coordinator.
Visitors to the The California Raptor Center, located at 1340 Equine Lane, Davis, just off Old Davis Road, will see a living collection of non-releasable raptors. The center's educational ambassador birds will be out "on the glove," so visitors can get a close view of the birds of prey, and talk to the volunteers. Julie Cotton, volunteer and outreach coordinator, said visitors will see "on the glove" Swainson's hawks, a white-tailed kite, barn owl, great-horned owls and a eregrine falcon. Viewable in their exhibits will be golden eagles, American kestrels, turkey vultures, prairie falcon and Western screech owls.
Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m
The Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, located in Room 1394 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane (off LaRue Road) will feature an action packed morning with displays highlighting carnivores, bats, reptiles and fish, said director Andrew Engilis Jr. Visitors will see specimen preparation demonstrations. Also planned is a kids' craft table.
Paleontology Collection, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Visitors at the Paleontology Collection, located in the Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road, can view fossil specimens dating from as old as 550 million years ago to more recent animal skeletons. Paleontology graduate students in invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology will answer questions and provide interesting factoids.
The Phaff Yeast Culture Collection in the Department of Food Science, and the Wine Yeast and Bacteria collection in the Department of Viticulture and Enology, are jointly hosting exhibits and tours. They are located at the Robert Mondavi Institute Teaching Winery and Brewery Building, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus. Visitors to the yeast collection exhibits can taste kombucha and Vegemite, smell lots of different species of yeast, look at yeast and bacteria cells under the microscope, learn about the history of yeast research at UC Davis, and hear about the latest discoveries coming out of the UC Davis yeast collections, says Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Food Science and Technology.
Anthropology Museum, noon to 4 p.m.
Visitors to the Department of Anthropology Museum, located in 328 Young Hall, will see collections of archaeological, ethnographic, biological and archival materials. They will "experience our cultural diversity through art pieces from around the world, our complex evolutionary history through primate skeletons and fossil hominin casts, or how archaeologists at UC Davis work across the globe to understand past cultural diversity through the artifacts people leave behind," said Professor Christyann Darwent of the Department of Anthropology. "There will also be an opportunity for visitors to learn to make tools from obsidian stone and to throw a spear with an atlatl."
The Botanical Conservatory, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"We again expect our cacao tree to be loaded with ripe fruit for display amongst the plethora of plant we'll be displaying!" says collections manager Ernesto Sandoval. "We'll also be showcasing our very well established pond that made a splash last year and newly added small epiphyte tree along with three towering Titan Arums in leaf! if the outdoor weather is good, Visitors will be encouraged to take a walk over to the nearby Joe and Emma Lin Biological Orchard and Gardens and bask in the biodiversity of these sizable plots of Biodiversity and the neatly pruned fruit tree orchard." The Botanical Conservatory is located on Kleiber Hall Drive.
Visitors to the Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium, located in Room 1026 of the Sciences Laboratory Building, central campus (off Kleiber Hall Drive), can tour the collection area, see plant pressing and mounting demonstrations, “pet our plant zoo” (a table showcasing the diversity of plants, including mosses, pine cones, ferns and flowering plants); look and plants under a microscope, and view oak exhibit. The children's activity? Making herbarium specimens, says curator Ellen Dean.
Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, noon to 4 p.m.
Visitors to the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee demonstration garden located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, Bee Biology Road, can learn about bees and see the plants they frequent, said manager Christine Casey. Guests will learn how to identify bees. They can also use a bee vacuum to catch, observe and release bees. A six-foot long sculpture of a worker bee by artist Donna Billick of Davis anchors the haven.
Nematode Collection, noon to 4 p.m.
The nematode collection will open from noon to 4 p.m. in the Science Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive. It will feature both live and slide-mounted nematodes, as well as jars of larger parasites. Nematodes, also called worms, are described as “elongated cylindrical worms parasitic in animals or plants or free-living in soil or water. They exist in almost every known environment.”
Marine Invertebrate Collection, noon to 4 p.m.
The Marine Invertebrate Collection in the Science Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive, will have touch tanks, preserved specimens, and some displays showing aspects of marine ecology and evolution. There will also be a seashell activity for kids, said Ivana Li. "In our touch tanks, we'll likely have sea stars and sea urchins. We are showing all the different geographical locations from which they were collected. This means that people can match up where specimens like our slipper lobster or salp came from. Other displays that we will have are on how to distinguish true crabs from other animals, and a display on seaweed ecology."
The sponsors made it all possible to have this event free to the public, Yang said. Ink Monkey is providing 300 t-shirts for the volunteers, and Marrone Bio Innovations and Novozymes are also major supporters. Other supporters include the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, UC Davis Library, White Labs Inc., Margaret Berendsen, Fletchers Real Estate, Peter Lash and Dan Potter.
Further information is available on the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day website.