Online learning using STEAM from McDowell Sonoran Conservancy for all ages.

2020 brings change and innovation to Conservancy education efforts

By Nicole Kallman, Education Manager2020 has certainly been a year of change and innovation. The pandemic beginning in March put our teachers and students in an unprecedented and challenging situation, working to navigate virtual classrooms amidst the social and economic impact of COVID-19. Despite these challenges, teachers rose to the occasion, working closely with parents

2020-12-14T08:42:12-07:00December 14th, 2020|Education, News, Online Learning|

Ecosystems – Everything is connected

By Nicole Kallman, Education Manager, McDowell Sonoran ConservancyWhen most of us think about ecosystems, we think of the relationships between plants and animals. But the most fundamental relationship in any ecosystem is between the environment and everything that lives there. As the environment changes, whatever lives there must adapt to the changes or be replaced

2020-11-16T12:44:30-07:00November 16th, 2020|Education, News, Online Learning|

White-nose Syndrome: A Deadly Disease for Bats

By Marianne Moore, Ph.D., Arizona State University assistant professor Originally published in the Fall 2017 Edition of Mountain Lines Around Valentine’s Day 2007, a phone call from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to my Ph.D. advisor at Boston University, Dr. Tom Kunz, alerted us to unusual bat mortality occurring in New York

Going Batty at Dixie Mine

By Debbie Langenfeld, McDowell Sonoran Conservancy Parson's Field Institute certified citizen scientist Originally published in the Fall 2017 issue of Mountain Lines Photos by Dwight Keller. It’s a hot summer night and the bats in the Dixie Mine wait for sunset to leave their cavern for their nightly excursion in search of an evening meal.

2021-01-10T03:55:17-07:00October 27th, 2020|Education, Featured News, News, Online Learning|

Bats Mean a Healthy Ecosystem

By Ronald Mixan and Joel Diamond, Arizona Game and Fish Department Originally published in the Spring 2018 Edition of Mountain Lines Photo Credits to George Andrejko and Ronald Mixan, Arizona Game and Fish Department Arizona provides habitat for 28 bat species. This diversity is second only to Texas and represents the highest endemism of any

2021-01-10T03:54:24-07:00October 26th, 2020|Education, News, Online Learning, Publications, Science|

ASU School of Life Sciences Special Seminar – Wealth, race, and wildlife: The impacts of structural inequality on urban wildlife

Grab the downloadable flyer here for this event on September 9 and 10 - ONLINE! Get the Flyer!

2020-09-04T10:20:33-07:00September 4th, 2020|Education, News, Online Learning, Science|

Parson’s Field Institute Associate Director Helen Rowe featured in podcast, In Defense of Plants

The human population of the Sonoran Desert is growing quickly, developing the surrounding landscape at an alarming pace. At the same time, botanists are racing to understand the fate of this so called "green deserts flora." In this episode we learn what it takes to properly assess a region's flora for extinction risk and how

Discovering Bats at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve

By: Jessie Dwyer Graduate Student, Arizona State University Last summer, the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy partnered with Dr. Jesse Lewis’ lab at Arizona State University to conduct a pilot research study on bats in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. The goal of the study was to gain fundamental knowledge about bats by determining which Arizona bat species

2020-06-02T10:10:55-07:00June 1st, 2020|News, Online Learning, Science|

Protecting Native Biodiversity Isn’t Easy

Originally published in the Spring 2017 Edition of Mountain Lines By Dr. Helen Rowe, McDowell Sonoran Conservancy Parsons Field Institute Associate Director Over half of Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve’s 80-mile boundary is surrounded by urban development, making it easily accessible to incursion from nonnative plants. Recent surveys by the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy Parsons Field Institute

2020-05-29T11:14:58-07:00June 1st, 2020|News, Online Learning, Science|
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