Events

Urban and suburban habitats play an important role in maintaining biodiversity as cities expand. But how do we know what kind of impact our habitats are having? Join us to learn about community science projects that can help you learn about what's living in your yard and local parks while helping scientists gather important data about what lives where and how that's changing. Discover how you can create your own bioblitz to track your native habitat's success at supporting wildlife. Learn how to join the City Nature Challenge to help with the world's largest wildlife census. You created your own park, let's do science there! 

About Steve:

As a child, Steve enjoyed exploring nature in his neighborhood, camping with his family and watching nature and outdoor adventure documentaries. His love of mountains inspired him to earn a BS in Biology as a Naturalist from Appalachian State University while leading climbing, caving and backpacking trips for ASU and local camps. After college he lived in upstate New York and eastern Pennsylvania, working as an outdoor and environmental educator before moving to Tennessee to be a Teacher/Naturalist at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. In 1994 during an all-night encounter with a bear he learned about the Education Department at Zoo Knoxville. He started as Outreach Coordinator nine months later, eventually becoming Education Curator in 2013. He started studying butterflies in 2009 which led to his interest in native plants. In 2013 he started the Tennessee Butterfly Monitoring Network with the help of a few volunteers. In 2020 he signed on to coordinate our region's annual City Nature Challenge project. Steve loves almost everything that he's allergic to, and lots of other things.