Community Science at Debs

If you hike by the Audubon Center at Debs Park in the morning this summer, you may see a group of people with clipboards, magnifying glasses, and pencils, crouched over milkweed plants, their heads almost resting on the ground as they inspect leaves and stems. The goal: to find and count every single egg or caterpillar of the beautiful western monarch butterfly. These migratory butterflies are threatened by habitat loss, so communities all over North America participate in a huge undertaking called the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project — or MLMP for short — to help researchers understand where monarchs are living and breeding.

On the other hand, you may be thinking to yourself, “I have seen people with clipboards at the Center, but they weren’t looking at the ground, they were looking up into the trees with binoculars.” Not only do we help collect data on butterfly populations, but we also monitor songbird nestboxes through a partnership with UC Davis to help researchers understand where birds are nesting and how much success breeding pairs have with their offspring. Audubon staff and volunteers collect this data by observing songbirds around each nestbox, and actually opening the box to count eggs and nestlings.

Both of these efforts are community science projects, meaning community members volunteer alongside researchers to collect data and answer questions in our shared environment. Science doesn’t always happen at a university with researchers wearing white lab coats and goggles — it also happens on the trails of the Audubon Center at Debs Park with you! Volunteers and community members have been a core part of these projects at every step of the way. From planting the milkweed plants that support a vulnerable butterfly species, to quietly opening up nestboxes and gently feeling songbird eggs, staff, volunteers, and partners at the Center are able to successfully participate in science when we work together in community.

To join these projects or similar community science efforts as they come up, email us at debspark@audubon.org!

City Nature Challenge 2024

The City Nature Challenge is a global competition in which cities from all over the world come together to do community science and log urban biodiversity. Held between April 26th to April 29th for 2024, it was an exciting time to collaborate with one another in the name of collecting data for science.

This year, the Audubon Center at Debs Park participated in the event with Aldama Elementary School's Green Team, resulting in over 100 observations, 50 species observed, and 31 identified among 20 observers! Our hike took us along the Hummingbird Trail and the Scrub Jay Trail, and our inquisitive community scientists both big and small left no stone unturned as they scoured the earth and sky for our wildlife neighbors. Among the observations were Darkling Beetles, Lemonade Berries, Desert Cottontails, and even Coyotes! 

For the curious-minded, you can check our iNaturalist project here.

We would also like to thank the Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Los Angeles Public Library for their Exploring Biodiversity kits. Check to see if your local library carries these kits, as they contain fun tools for observations, such as clip-on glasses for your phone's camera! 

We hope that this has piqued your interest and that you too will consider making observations on your next hike!

A New Generation of Climate Stewards: The Audubon Youth Leaders of 2023-2024

Originally a college-level class created by UC ANR, the Climate Stewardship class has been adapted for high school students at the Audubon Center at Debs Park. Students undergo a sixteen-week program that teaches them about the emotional and societal impacts of climate change as much as the science behind it. Through this, students practice how to become community leaders for the climate through advocacy and hands-on conservation work that embeds the practice of stewardship into them. 

Since November, the Audubon Youth Leaders have learned about how climate change impacts communities at large, drafted and carried out fun community activities for our Winter in the Park event, and participated in over 5 habitat restorations, working across different sites within Ernest E. Debs Park and even out to Rio de Los Angeles State Park. They planted an array of native plants at Rio de Los Angeles State Park to help create habitat for the Least Bell's Vireo and just recently weeded a significant portion of the new restoration site down by the Hummingbird Trail near the Center. Melany, our Community Conservation Fellow, worked with them in our nursery, teaching them how to repot plants and the significant ties between native plants and climate. 

At the culmination of their program, our Audubon Youth Leaders are tasked with creating a capstone project that ties together climate and community. They utilize the skills they learned thus far to understand how climate change affects their communities, what their communities need to be successful in the face of climate change, and what they can do in the future to carry on this work.

Our hopes are that they will go forth, equipped with the knowledge and know-how of climate stewardship and conservation, and become the next generation of climate stewards for their communities!