Human activities influence abiotic and biotic interactions and modify habitats that affect biodiversity, conservation of wildlife, community composition, and interspecific interactions. Urban habitats represent a challenging and unwelcoming environment for some species and a refuge and cornucopia of resources for others. Yet, many inner-city residents fail to recognize their neighborhoods, backyards and local parks as homes for wildlife. In 2006, I began blogging about common wildlife that could be observed in urban and suburban communities in cities such as St. Louis, Missouri, USA. I catalogued the activities of local students and their families exploring and discovering nature in urban areas.
Although many residents were aware of the disparate environmental conditions they were likely to experience as urban residents, they seemed quite unfamiliar with the baseline ecology of their communities. Such audiences are described as scientifically underserved because they are seldom engaged in science or science research about their communities. Through training as an NSF GK12 Fellow in informal science education and my community service experiences in organizations such as The Urban League and Big Brothers Big Sisters, I cultivated relationships and extended opportunities to these communities.
Results/Conclusions
From these experiences, I recommend two approaches to engage broader audiences in urban ecology and related disciplines. 1) Develop meaningful relationships with local schools. My personal connections to science instructors, guidance counselors, and school administrations gave me the opportunity to host afterschool science club activities, which eventually lead to the creation of a summer internship for high school students to examine local urban ecology. 2) Commit to community service. Service opportunities with local churches, civic organizations, and neighborhood based social services organizations opened the door to many communities. I was able to engage inter-generational audiences in wildlife observation and outdoor recreation; and I came to mentor several young women who found their on ramp to science via these urban science experiences.