Roosevelt Island's iDig2Learn Celebrating 10 Year Anniversary With Two Exciting Upcoming Webinars, March 31 Designing Your Garden To Attract Pollinators And April 7 Creating Urban Habitats:Roosevelt Island As An Ecosystem - Register Now, Space Limited

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico reports:

iDig2Learn kicks off spring with a star studded free webinar, Design your Garden to Attract Pollinators, hosted by Ursula Chanse of the New York Botanical Garden and Chrissy Word of the City Parks Foundation. 

20 years ago they teamed up to see if there were enough floral resources in the Bronx for the Monarch butterfly and found out there wasn't. Their answer involved creating the Butterfly Project NYC. Together with neighbors they built out Monarch butterfly corridors by planting to attract pollinators and to date they have given away over 75,000 free native plants to the community. 

iDig2Learn is thrilled to celebrate our 10th anniversary with this special free webinar Thursday, March 31st at noon. RSVP a must, space is limited - email "Pollinators" to idig2learn@gmail.com to secure your spot and get the Zoom link. Don't miss this one.

Ursula Chanse is the Director of Bronx Green-Up and Community Horticulture at The New York Botanical Garden. Since 2005, she has managed Bronx Green-Up, the community gardening outreach program of The New York Botanical Garden. This program provides horticulture education, training, and technical assistance to Bronx residents, community gardeners, urban farmers, local schools, and community organizations. Ursula’s background includes ecological horticulture, public health, community education, organizing and advocacy work.

Chrissy Word is Director of Education at City Parks Foundation and oversees the development of dynamic STEM programs for youth in the most underserved neighborhoods of NYC: Green Girls, Coastal Classroom, Learning Gardens, Seeds to Trees and Career/College Readiness for high school interns. Chrissy has 20 years of experience and training in student centered pedagogy, child development and experiential learning. She has developed and implemented a number of successful citizen science projects for high school youth on the Bronx River and as co-founder of Butterfly Project NYC, a grassroots conservation organization, she initiated a pollinator curriculum guide for NYC teachers. 

As previously reported, Chrissy Ward visited Roosevelt Island last October and together with Ms Delfico and Emily Fano of the National Wildlife Federation spoke about the mission of the NYC Pollinator Group at the Roosevelt Island Community Garden.
 

Click here for more information on the NYC Pollinators visit to Roosevelt Island last October. 

Email iDig2Learn@gmail.com to get the Zoom link for the Pollinators webinar.

Ms Delfico adds:

Also, we have  a very exciting joint venture - Creating Urban Habitats: Roosevelt Island as an Ecosystem webinar featuring Rebecca McMackin of Brooklyn Bridge Park on April 7 at 6:30pm hosted by RIGC (Community Garden), iDig2Learn, Cornell Tech, and RIOC.

Thu, April 7, 2022 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM EDT 

Did you know Brooklyn Bridge Park was a parking lot before it was transformed into meadows and wetlands for people and pollinators? 

RSVP to the Eventbrite link to tune in on 4/7 evening to find out more from Rebecca McMackin, the director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

Roosevelt Island Lecture on Creating Urban Habitats 

Creating Urban Landscapes: stunningly beautiful gardens can also contain thriving wildlife habitat in the heart of an urban setting. 

A free virtual lecture sponsored by RI Community Garden in partnership with iDig2Learn, Cornell Tech, and Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation. 

 Rebecca McMackin is an “ecologically obsessed horticulturist and garden designer. ”She has spent the last decade as Director of Horticulture of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she manages 85 acres of diverse parkland organically and with an eye towards habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. Rebecca lectures and writes about landscape management, pollination ecology, and designs amazing gardens. 

Urban residents interested in the green spaces around you and professionals working in parks, landscape, or building management are invited to hear more about how: 

• Ecologically managed, beautiful urban spaces provide quiet for nesting birds, host plants for butterflies, pollen for bees, and life-restoring moments for humans.  
• Creating and curating city spaces as ever-changing natural ecosystems aligns well with art, sports, and daily community life.

Watch this video of Ms McMackin speaking on developing a thriving ecosystem at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Congrats to iDig2Learn on their 10 year anniversary!

Roosevelt Island Celebrates Pollinator Week To Protect Bees, Birds, Butterflies, Bats & Beetles - Watch Informative Conversation With RI Residents Kaja Meade And Christina Delfico About Attracting Pollinators And Preserving Our Natural Environment

Happy National Pollinator Week! According to the Pollinator Partnership:

Pollinator Week 2020 (June 22-28) is the thirteenth consecutive year of bringing greater awareness to the critically important issue of pollinator conservation since Pollinator Partnership (P2) founded the initiative in 2007. While this year might not be a typical Pollinator Week due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the planet have pledged to continue promoting pollinator health and well-being through socially distant and responsible events.

Through the numerous virtual gatherings, webinars, responsible planting sessions, socially distant garden and farm walks, and monument lightings, Pollinator Week 2020 is geared to be the busiest and best one yet!....

... Pollinator Week shines a spotlight on the vital role of pollinators in our agriculture and ecosystems. Pollinators bring us 1 in 3 bites of food; promote ecosystem health; and lay the foundation for a sustainable future. While we are seeing some signs of the benefits of conservation efforts, many species of pollinators are still in grave peril. As a result of P2’s commitment and coordination of Pollinator Week, people across North America are motivated to help pollinators, and this is represented in the enthusiastic response that Pollinator week evokes....

iDig2Learn is doing it's part to celebrate and raise awareness  on Roosevelt Island of pollinator conservation.

Celebrate Pollinator Week with us! 13 yrs ago the U.S. Senate’s unanimous approval designated a wk in June as “Nat’l Pollinator Week” to help reverse vast declines in pollinator pops. Learn 2 love bees, birds, butterflies, bats & beetles. #Pollinatorweek pic.twitter.com/1l44tbpoAS

— iDig2Learn (@iDig2Learn) June 21, 2020

#PollinatorWeek TY @GreenParkGarden for adding @Rooseveltisland to ur Monarch Migration Corridor Map. Exciting that more friends along the East River are restoring habitat by planting host plant milkweed & nectar-rich asters & goldenrod! @RIOCny pic.twitter.com/APyFKBbfbJ

— iDig2Learn (@iDig2Learn) June 22, 2020

#pollinatorweek a nat’l wk of learning to protect bees, butterflies, birds, bats, beetles, ants & flower flies. Try planting purple Smooth Aster (Aster laevis). TY @CitizensNYC @google for #LoveYourCity 2018 grant for the @Rooseveltisland hospital garden! pic.twitter.com/sBgGp7jrvQ

— iDig2Learn (@iDig2Learn) June 24, 2020

Roosevelt Island resident Kaja Meade spoke with iDig2Learn Founder and Roosevelt Island resident Christina Delfico about Pollinator Week. It's a  great interview and very interesting conversation. Watch for yourself and learn the vital importance of pollinators on Roosevelt Island and all around the world..

View this post on Instagram

A fantastic conversation about how to attract pollinators, and preserve and support our natural natural environment at home and in the city.

A post shared by Kaja Meade (@kajameade) on Jun 22, 2020 at 7:18am PDT

Be A Roosevelt Island Bee Watcher - Join NYC Parks & American Museum Of Natural History In The Great Pollinator Project - BZZZZZZ

You Tube Video Of Bumble Bee On Sunflower

Are you interested in Roosevelt Island Bees? If so, you may want to get involved in the Great Pollinator Project which, according to WNYC is:

... a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and the New York City Parks and Recreation Department's Greenbelt Native Plant Center. The goal is to get members of the public — “citizen scientists” in Great Pollinator parlance — to observe bees and report what they see and where they see it. The project then uses that data to determine how bees are affected by habitat and land use....

and interviews a Roosevelt Island resident Bee watcher:

... New York City is sort of a hotbed for exotic bees."

This surprises some of the bee watchers. Erenia Meriton works for the Seychelles Embassy. She used to watch carpenter bees in the Seychelles islands, off the coast of Madagascar. Now, she and her two children watch bees on Roosevelt Island. "I was surprised that there were so many bee species here," Meriton says, "not only in New York and America but all over the world. I knew there were a lot of them, but I didn’t know the numbers."...

The full WNYC radio report is below.


More information on becoming a Mobile Bee Watcher for the Great Pollinator Project is available here. Bee Gardens have been established at 18 locations around New York City though none are on Roosevelt Island. Despite no Roosevelt Island Bee Gardens, you can still participate in the Great Pollinator Project:

... Become a Mobile Bee Watcher In Your Own Neighborhood

Walk around your neighborhood. When you find a blooming, sunlit flower observe it following our Bee Watcher guidelines and using our data sheet for as long as you can. Note when you see bees visit, following the Instructions and filling in a separate data sheet for each plant observed. If you cannot identify the flower you observed, please send a digital image of the flower (along with your completed data sheet) to beewatchers@gmail.com .