Ironwood Tree Experience at Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

Every weekend Ironwood Tree Experience (ITE) travels in and around the Tucson area looking for natural adventures and opportunities to do good works in the community. Activities are balanced between "backcountry experiences" and "community action days" so that the youth can benefit from both the fun of being outdoors and the fulfillment of giving back. In this semester's Expeditionary Experience, youth ages 14 to 16 years old will travel all over the Sonoran Desert region and then down to the Sea of Cortez with the mission of bringing back not only the experiences they have, but also the data they collect while in the field.

This week's program was led by SNRE master's student Kristin Wisneski to continue ITE's geospatial data collection training while learning new methods in environmental monitoring. Using a scaled-down version of the Nature Conservancy's Rapid Ecological Assessment and David Tongway's Landscape Function Analysis the youth learned to take vegetation measurements along a transect and make rapid assessment of the ecological balance and health of a site on the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area near Sonoita, Arizona. We were also joined by AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer Kostya Nakazny who led the efforts to have the youth film their experiences in the field. Kurt Bahti, a former AZ Game and Fish Wildlife Manager Supervisor, located a herd of Pronghorn Antelope, showed us a newly installed prairie dog colony, and taught the youth how to "read the newspaper," or see what wildlife having been visiting a local watering hole. Axhel Munoz from Pima County Natural Resources and Parks & Recreation and Eric Dhruv, Center for Children and Nature Co-Director and ITE leader headed up the day's efforts while providing their strong expertise in fieldwork and empowering youth to be a part of their communities and nature.