Maintain and monitor the Valley Life Science Building pollinator garden
Cynthia Looy, Professor
Integrative Biology
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
Pollinators are essential components of a healthy ecosystem and provide vital benefits to both plants and animals. The student-run pollinator garden on the south side of the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) supports native insects, spiders, and other wildlife and is an environmental education resource for students. Our goal is to engage students outside the classroom by maintaining a constant, high-visibility demonstration landscape around VLSB. We expect this landscape to be utilized by several courses and workshops on the UCB campus related to conservation, natural history, landscape design, entomology, ornithology, botany, and ethnobotany. So our URAP-heavy team has planned, implemented, and monitored the installation of native plants that attract insects and other wildlife.
Role: This semester, we are looking to develop a central research focus with a team of individuals with interest and experience in observing pollinators. Additionally, we are hoping to develop a DeCal to take place Fall 2025 to educate students about the development, benefits, and maintenance of a pollinator garden. Please see below for detailed role responsibilities. This project is led by undergraduate students Ian Chan, Kimberly Fong, Kaitlyn Oden and Dr. Cindy Looy, in collaboration with Dr. Peter Oboyski (Essig Museum).
Projects:
1. Garden maintenance (all students)
- Weeding, planting, and mulching
2. Pollinator surveillance & research development (3-5 positions)
- Survey pollinators using cameras & other methods
- Develop central research focus, topic, and methods
3. Website development - public outreach (1 position)
- Seeking experience with website development
- Work with a current member to build a website to act as a landing page for public outreach including project description, history, and progress.
4. Decal development (1 position)
- Seeking experience in DeCal development and facilitation.
- Complete DeCal application, and create a syllabus & lesson topics in collaboration with existing project leads and members
5. Landscape design & maintenance (1 position)
- Familiarity with landscape design terminology & tools
- Collaborate with existing team to continue garden design, development, and maintenance
We are looking for 6-8 URAP students to help with pollinator surveillance, data analysis, garden design, decal development, and website development for the garden. These tasks will be split or shared among the URAP students and require 5 hours per week out of their schedule. Please indicate which task(s) you are most interested in. Once a week, all students will meet in the garden for a group meeting and garden maintenance. There will also be opportunities to develop research questions and conduct statistical analysis.
Garden Maintenance (2-3 hours per week) and 2-3 hours per week of either: (5 hours total)
- Pollinator Surveillance & research development
- Website and content development
- Decal development
- Landscape design
Qualifications: Interest in gardening and natural history observations, excitement for being outside, desire to grow native plants and increase pollinator diversity around the Valley Life Sciences building. No previous research experience is required.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Ian Chan, Kaitlyn Oden, and Kimberly Fong (undergraduate students)
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Related website: http://www.looylab.org/
Environmental Issues Biological & Health Sciences