Santa Ynez Chumash Environmental Office

Currently seeking volunteers to come out on Thursdays and Fridays and help out at our Tribal Nursery. We want you to connect with Mother Earth while you engage in ancestral practices. Please sign up on the website shown: https://signup.com/go/VdijMOx... For any other questions contact Alexa at [email protected] or (805) 303-7486.

Another beautiful morning at the Nursery with our Master Gardener class #allhandsondeck #nativeplants #medicinal #seedpropagation #mastergardener #plantbabies #heal #weedandwater

This Sunday and Monday (Nov. 15-16th) is a King Tide, the highest tide of the year! These unusual tides give us a glimpse of what our coastline will look like w...ith higher sea levels. Take a picture at high tide and share it with California King Tides to help them study flood risk and plan for future sea level rise. For information on King Tide times and where to upload photos, go to coastal.ca.gov/kingtides. Remember to be safe and never turn your back on the ocean! Photos are from past King Tides in Santa Barbara and Goleta, courtesy of California King Tides See more

As leaves start to fall during the Autumn season, acorns follow! Which means it’s time to harvest and plant these seedlings into oak trees for future generations! In addition, we have made lots of progress with completing growing tables over the past few weeks! Thanks to all of our helping hands at the Nursery #oaktree #planting #growth #autumn #hardwork #tribalnursery

Creek monitoring on brisk autumn morning #syceo #waterqualitymonitoring #waterquality #streamscience

Go Green this Halloween! Instead of throwing your pumpkins away, turn them into compost to richen your garden soil These simple steps save millions of pumpkins from getting land filled. #Halloween #jackolantern #Compost #Green

Happy to see our nursery thriving with new growing tables, seedlings, and plant growth.

Happy Friday, everyone! For your neighborhood or beach cleanups during Coastal Cleanup Month, if you use the Clean Swell App to report your data, please use Explore Ecology as the Group Name. By listing Explore Ecology, Santa Barbara County will know that your cleanup happened in this county, which will help with data reporting If you are heading out this weekend for a cleanup, please be sure to check the local air quality at @ourairsbc! If you have any questions, pleas...e send @syceo a message!! Stay safe, everyone! #protectyourhappyplace #coastalcleanupday #ccd2020 #coastalcleanup #coastalcleanupmonth #syceo #creekcleanup

Coastal Cleanup Month is officially here and we need your help! This year, Coastal Cleanup Day has become Coastal Cleanup Month and will be taking place every Saturday (or any day that works for you)! Even though cleanups will be self-guided due to COVID-19, you can still help protect our waterways from trash that travels through storm drains, creeks, and rivers to our beautiful coastline Pick a place that works for you, whether that be your local neighborhood, park, or ...beach, any place you consider your happy place! Remember to practice physical distancing and strictly follow both local ordinances and the safety guidelines provided on the California Coastal Commission website. Download the Clean Swell App on your smartphone or tablet to track your cleanup efforts! Information entered on the Clean Swell App will instantaneously be uploaded to the Ocean Conservancy’s global ocean trash database For more information, check out @exploreecology Thank you and stay safe! #protectyourhappyplace #coastalcleanupday #ccd2020 #coastalcleanup #coastalcleanupmonth #syceo #creekcleanup

How to Make Compote From Chia!

This year marks the 36th Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day! Due to COVID-19, Coastal Cleanup Day has been changed to Coastal Cleanup Month! What does this mean? Instead of meeting up at at specific site on a single Saturday, cleanups will now happen every Saturday in September from 9am to Noon! And don’t worry, if Saturdays don’t work, that’s fine! Cleanups are self-guided and can happen anytime on any day that works for you! Just pick a location close to home, whether that be your neighborhood or a local park . Protecting the coast starts at your front door! Stay tuned for more information on how you can help!

SYCEO believes that everyone should take precautions during the rise of wildfires overlapping with the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information please use the resources provided by the EPA, CDC, and CDPH. Stay safe & healthy #californiawildfires #wildfiresmoke #airquality #pandemic #climatechange #preparedness #health

This sleepy bee woke up in a squash blossom! Squash bees (Peponapsis pruinosa) are ground nesting native bees that, as their name suggests, have evolved to pollinate squash (Cucurbita). Unlike honeybees (Apis genus), which tend to pollinate a variety of plants, squash bees love squash so much that they are actually squash specialists, meaning that they will only gather pollen from plants in the Cucurbita genus. A squash field with a healthy population of Peponapsis will ...not even need honeybees to be well pollinated. These bees are ground nesting, solitary insects. They don't make hives in trees like honeybees, but prefer to lay their eggs in tunnels near their food source. This makes them vulnerable to tilling and the spraying of insecticides. You can help these bees by leaving areas of your yard in more natural state and avoiding pesticides. If you have squash and would like to see these bees, check early in the morning to see them when they are gathering pollen. They will travel from flower to flower until around noon when the flowers close. Soon, they will be fast asleep inside until the next morning. We are so grateful for the pollinators that help feed us and remind us of the many ways in which all living things are connected. #syceo #gardens #gardensofinstagram #plants #plantstagram #plantsofinstagram #squash #squashblossom #flowers #cucurbita #cucurbitaceae #horticulture #animals #nativeanimals #pollinators #pollinatorgarden #pollinatorfriendly #insects #insectsofinstagram #bees #beesofinstagram #bees # #squashbee #peponapispruinosa #invertebrates #invertebratesofinstagram #savethebees #savethebees See more

Macroinvertebrate Monday is back...and this week we’re looking at dragonflies and damselflies! You might recognize these spectacular flyers, which belong to the Odonata order of insects. Odonata, which is derived from the Greek word odonto- meaning tooth, refers to the strong, serrated teeth of these predators. Dragonflies and damselflies spend their juvenile lives in the water and their adult lives in the air or on land where they feed on other flying insects like gnats a...nd mosquitos. Dragonflies and damselflies can be used as indicators of water quality in rivers and streams because they rely on high quality water for proper development in the larval stage. Spending their entire lives in and near aquatic freshwater habitats, the presence of these acrobatic insects has been used as an indicator of overall ecosystem health #macroinvertebratemonday #benthicmacroinvertebrates #odonata #dragonflies #damselflies #macroinvertebrates #waterquality #waterqualitymonitoring #syceo #streamscience See more

Composting your organic materials and food scraps has many benefits: 1. Enriches soil in your garden 2. Lowers your carbon footprint 3. Reduces methane emissions from landfills and the amount of trash going into landfills 4. Reduces the need for chemical fertilizers... And more! Learn how to compost in just a few steps See more

Macroinvertebrate Monday is here! This week’s macroinvertebrate is the stonefly, from the insect order Plecoptera. The name Plecoptera comes from the Greek pleco meaning folded and ptera meaning wing, which refers to the pleated hind wings which fold under the front wings when at rest. Just like mayflies and caddisflies, stoneflies are very sensitive to water pollution and only live in the very cleanest of streams. Stoneflies have hairy looking gills under their arms and... on their middle body. In waterbodies without adequate oxygen, they will do push-ups to move the water past their gills. Adult stoneflies are typically found on the banks of streams and rivers. Since they are not active fliers, these macroinvertebrates usually remain near the ground where they feed on algae or lichens #stoneflies #plecoptera #macroinvertebratemonday #macroinvertebrates #benthicmacroinvertebrates #waterquality #waterqualitymonitoring #syceo #streamscience See more

It’s Macroinvertebrate Monday! Today, we’re looking at the caddisfly, from the aquatic insect order Trichoptera. The name Trichoptera, derived from the Greek words trichos meaning hair and ptera which means wings, refers to the long silky hairs that cover most of the body and wings. Caddisflies are widely distributed in freshwater habitats all throughout the world. The larvae live in aquatic environments, building cases from their own silk as well as stones, twigs, leaf... fragments, or other natural materials found in the water. Different species of caddisfly tend to use different materials for their protective cases, making each one distinctive for each family or genus of caddisfly. Their larvae, which absorb oxygen dissolved in water through their soft skin tissues or gills, can be very sensitive to water pollution. Due to their diversity and abundance in freshwater systems and their low tolerance to pollution, caddisflies are often used as an indicator of good water quality #caddisflies #trichoptera #macroinvertebratemonday #macroinvertebrates #benthicmacroinvertebrates #waterquality #waterqualitymonitoring #syceo #streamscience See more