Photo credit: Jim McGinity

A student gets ready to release a Magnolia Warbler as part of the Urban Ecology Center's bird-banding study.

In 2001, when I told the board members of our little neighborhood center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that the internationally known Cornell Lab of Ornithology wanted to partner with us, few of them believed me.

Mindy LaBranche, project leader of the Lab's Urban Bird Studies, was interested in tapping into the audience that we successfully serve: central city urban youth. We in turn were delighted for the opportunity to benefit from the Lab's technical knowledge and unique approach to citizen science.

Our partnership has now been realized, with resounding success. With guidance from the Lab and local partners, our Urban Ecology Center has become an urban field research station for citizen scientists. Our youth have been among the first to pilot test the Lab's Urban Bird Studies citizen-science projects.

The Urban Ecology Center evolved out of a neighborhood effort 12 years ago to reduce crime at Riverside Park. Volunteers cleaned up the park and offered nature walks in the previously abandoned 15-acre woodland. Today, in the humble accommodations of a doublewide trailer, we host more than 10,000 student visits from 12 neighborhood schools and another 4,000 adults to the park each year. Because of all this use, crime in the park has practically disappeared. We are now in the midst of a park revitalization project and a capital campaign for a new building that includes a Citizen-Science Research Lab, neighborhood learning centers, and a Native Wisconsin Animal Lab.

Since its inception two years ago, our neighborhood-based citizen-science program has tagged butterflies that have later been recaptured in Mexico, discovered a threatened species of snake in the heart of Milwaukee, and installed an invisible locator grid within the park for researchers. We initiated a very successful bird-banding program, run by a dedicated group of volunteers who banded 198 birds during the first year. A monthly lecture series shares with the community some of the significant research occurring in Milwaukee and our park. One of our lecturers was none other than the Lab's Mindy LaBranche when she came for her first site visit.

The Web-based Urban Bird Studies projects are slated for distribution next year, thanks to feedback from four pilot sites—our Urban Ecology Center; the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Urban Ecology Institute in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa, Florida. For us, these studies are exciting because they allow our students to act locally by collecting data, and think globally with Cornell scientists and other students from around the world.

To learn more about the Urban Ecology Center, visit us at www.urbanecologycenter.org or call (414) 964-8505.

                                                      — Ken Leinbach, Urban Ecology Center

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