My Sycamore Canyon
Discover: Sycamore Canyon!
Discover: Sycamore Canyon was filmed and edited by Sarinah Simons as her capstone project for the California Naturalist program hosted by the Ameal Moore Nature Center.
Second Saturdays: Monarch Butterflies
This past Second Saturdays event was all about the Monarch butterfly! Did you know that the Monarchs need your help? Monarch butterflies will only lay their eggs on a milkweed plant. Milkweed and nectar plants that Monarchs need are declining because of human activity (such as development and pesticides). But without milkweed plants, there wouldn’t be any more Monarchs! To help, the Ameal Moore Nature Center was handing out information and milkweed seeds to visitors.
Visitors spent the afternoon doing fun Monarch life cycle crafts, hearing information, and seeing live Monarchs that the center later released at the end of the event. If you missed this event, don’t worry! We’ve got another one coming up June 11, 2016. Vector Control will be with us to talk about bloodsuckers!
Are you interested in helping the Monarchs out on their quest for milkweed plants? You can help conserve and protect Monarchs and their habitats by becoming a Monarch waystation (a place where Monarchs can lay their eggs). All you need are the right milkweed plants and some nectar plants for the butterflies to feed on after they emerge from their cocoons. Native and local plants are always best when planting a garden as they’re best adapted to your area’s climate. You can visit Monarchwatch.org for more information on what milkweed plants are best for your area.
It’s a joy to be green at Riverside’s Green Festival!
It was an absolute joy for the Ameal Moore Nature Center to attend the Riverside Green Festival and Summit on Saturday April 23. Hosted by Riverside City College in their Quad and Garden, the Green Festival was the result of the hard work and dedication of individuals who believe in the health of our planet! Partnering institutions included the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District, the Western Municipal Water District, the City of Riverside’s Public Utilities Department, the Best Best & Krieger Attorneys at Law, the University of California Riverside’s Center for Sustainable Suburban Development, and the Wood Streets Green Team.
The Ameal Moore Nature Center was in attendance and hosted a booth with the City of Riverside’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Services department, as well as the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District to promote Citizen Science. With us, was Peter Ibsen, a scientist studying how Southern California’s urban trees are affected by climate. Peter, like many scientists, depends on Citizen Science to help further his findings.
Citizen Science is all about you, our fantastic visitors! It is the partnership of citizens in non-scientific related career fields with scientists to quickly gather data on mass levels. Riverside Citizen Science is the City of Riverside’s effort to make science a normal part of every day life and to aid the scientific community in helping us all. Riverside Citizen Science strides to partner citizens with scientists to quickly and efficiently reach scientific goals! With your help, a scientist can collect data quickly, leading to quicker policy development that can positively change the world! In other words, your actions CAN make a difference!
The nature center was pleased to be in attendance at this fantastic event!
For more information on the Peter’s research and to become involved, visit HERE.
-
- Alisa, Pam, and Kim pose for the Green Festival photo booth.
-
- Green Festival 2016
Second Saturdays: ‘Earth Day lite’
April’s Second Saturdays event was full of special guests and fun! In honor of Earth Day, the Ameal Moore Nature Center hosted our own small Earth Day festival. Guests included UCR grad students and STEM Academy students. Outside, visitors were invited to converse with our guests and learn more about how ocean pollution effects animals and the various methods we can use to clean up oil spills!
Think of the planet as a house- a really BIG house! As a homeowner, you want to take care of your property. While big changes are important (maybe your home needs a new roof), it’s the small changes that help maintain your home to keep it looking nice. Each of us can make small changes to ensure that the Earth is a nice place to live in the future! A simple change that you can make is to switch from disposable to reusable. By using reusable products such as cloth bags and travel mugs, you’re helping to ensure that we have a nice planet. With this in mind, the nature center provided free canvas bags for visitors to decorate and take home to help cut down on the number of plastic bags they use.
Did you miss this event? Don’t worry! Next month we’ll have another Second Saturdays event- make sure to check our events page so that you don’t miss out on the fun!
Friends From Near and Far!
The City of Riverside has many sister cities around the world! Sendai, Japan is one of them! The Ameal Moore Nature Center hosted a group of students from Sendai for a hike, bioblitz (a mass count of animal life in the park), and talk. Student volunteers from the STEM Academy acted as student guides, leading hikes and conducting the bioblitz.
The nature center was pleased to greet the students and looks forward to doing so again next year!
A Naturalist Evening
California Naturalist has begun! The first of 10 evening classes met at the nature center Thursday, March 10th for a night of education, community, and of course, nature. Evening topics will vary, following the official California Naturalist curriculum and textbook. By the end of our 10 weeks, students will be certified naturalists! The course is by preregistration only, so if you didn’t sign up this time, be on the look out for future classes, which will be posted as they become available. The nature center is looking forward to each night of the course and is excited at the prospect of soon having 25 newly certified naturalists in the area!
Second Saturdays: Nature Journals
Our March Second Saturdays Event was a lot of fun! Visitors selected small journals prepared by staff members and then filled them with their observations, notes, and sketches from the park and examples inside of the center.
This event will be expanded in the future to include an evening class for adults! Be sure to check our calendar for classes at they are scheduled!
Second Saturdays: Bird Love
This past Saturday, February 13, the nature center hosted its monthly Second Saturdays event. This month we got swept away with bird love as we focused on birds! Our topic, courtship rituals, was just in time for Valentine’s Day! The day was full of fun activities including a guided hike, live bird show and tell, bird feeder making, and a bird nest craft.
Special guest UCR professor Gene Anderson kicked off our event day with a guided bird watching hike where he and visitors participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. After the hike, visitors came back to the center and were greeted by a variety of birds, including love birds! Our friends at Magnolia Bird Farm in Riverside came out and joined us for this fun event, bringing with them live birds that visitors got to get up close and personal with!
The Ameal Moore Nature Center would like to thank both Professor Anderson and Lori from Magnolia Bird Farm for making our day so much fun! If you missed this free, family friendly event, don’t worry! Our Second Saturdays program happens every month! Join us next time in March as we focus on nature journals!
2017 GUIDED HIKE NOTICE!
Our guided hikes are now only on the FIRST Saturdays of every month! Please join us at 9am for a fun hike in the park! Hikes leave no later than 9:10am.* Please come inside and let us know when you arrive!
We look forward to having you join us!
*Hikes may be cancelled due to extreme temperatures. Please check the schedule for any changes.
Doggy’s Day Out: Don’t forget the leashes and bags!
The Ameal Moore Nature Center loves our four legged friends! Every day visitors make their way through the park by bike and foot, often accompanied by a furry friend. Dogs make great additions to a family, and the center loves seeing them enjoying themselves with their adult companions. However, the park is not a dog park, and certain rules must be followed while enjoying our beautiful outdoor space. Please don’t forget two very important things on your next visit: leashes and bags!
To ensure the safety of all park users (both human and non), the nature center would like to remind everyone to make sure they follow leash laws. All dogs are required to be on leashes for their safety and the safety of others as well. The Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park is a protected reserve that is home to many endangered species and species that may be harmful to domesticated pets (rattle snakes, coyotes, bobcats, and more). To protect our animals as well as yours, it’s important to keep your furry friends on leash at all times while in the park. Riverside Municipal Code Section 8.04.050 states:
“No person owning or having charge, care, custody or control of any dog shall, either intentionally or unintentionally, cause, permit or allow the same to be or run at large upon any street or other public place, or upon any unenclosed lot or place in the City or upon the private property of another without permission of the person owning or in possession of such property unless such dog is restrained by a substantial chain or leash and is in control of a competent person; provided, however, the provisions of this section shall not apply to any official police dog while such animal is on duty.”
To ensure that our park stays beautiful, please remember to clean up after your dogs. All supplies required for clean up are the responsibility of the owner. Riverside Municipal Code Section 9.08.050 states:
“Any person causing, permitting, or allowing any animal, bird, or reptile owned or possessed by him, or any animal, bird, or reptile in the custody of control of such person, to be present in any park pursuant to the provisions of Section 9.08.030 shall immediately pick up and properly dispose of the feces in a bag or other container, and its removal from the park and dispose in an appropriate depository.”
Please be courteous and kind to our park by following the law and keeping your dogs on leash and picking up after them. The park is home to many and open to all, so let’s pledge to keep it clean and safe for everyone!