Spend your Earth Day learning more about how to protect one of Chicago's most important pollinators! We know monarch butterflies for their striking orange and black wings and impressive migratory journey from Canada to Mexico. They also play an important role as pollinators in ecosystems. But monarch populations are in trouble—they’ve decreased more than 80 percent over two decades, as their habitat of milkweed and nectar plants declines throughout North America. Chicago and other cities play a critical role in helping monarchs recover. Individuals, communities, researchers, and cities and government officials can all contribute to building urban conservation networks.
Join Erika Hasle, Conservation Ecologist for the Field Museum, and Professor Alison Anastasio, Urban Ecologist and environmental steward, for a special Earth Day presentation on monarch butterflies, their migration patterns, and their impact on Chicago's ecosystems. This presentation will also include information on the Field Museum's Monarch Community Science Project, an initiative that invites volunteers like you to help collect data on monarch butterflies right here in the city, and includes a free plant giveaway!
This event is co-sponsored by the Program on the Global Environment, and organized as part of UChicago ECo, a platform aimed at fostering connection among and support for the University of Chicago’s Environmental Community. Register on Zoom.
Erika Hasle is a Conservation Ecologist with the Field Museum's Keller Science Action Center. Erika brings her background in both ecology and Geographic Information Systems to the Action Center's Chicago Region Conservation Programs. Her current projects include using GIS to support habitat stewardship, in the Kankakee Sands Ecoregion, and conservation planning for monarch butterflies in urban areas.
Alison Anastasio is an urban ecologist broadly trained in evolution and ecology. As an Assistant Instructional Professor, Dr. Anastasio teaches undergraduates in the Environmental and Urban Studies major to examine the human entanglement with the environment through a scientific lens while in a humanistic context, including urban ecology, human health and the environment, habitat restoration, and part of the Environmental and Urban Studies core sequence. She has a particular focus on engaging students experientially with the city of Chicago and its communities.