- Angela Fitzgerald: Hidden within the busy streets of Milwaukee
is an outdoor sanctuary, the Urban Ecology Center.
The center has three branches
and today, we're visiting Riverside Park
to meet up with branch manager Megan Forseth
to discover more.
So, Megan, can you tell us
about the mission of the Urban Ecology Center?
- Yeah, it's an amazing mission.
It's very simple.
It's connecting people and cities
to nature and each other.
How cool is that?
I don't think anything gets better than that.
- Absolutely! - We really engage
with everybody and anybody
and so, of all ages, people of all backgrounds.
Any time we can get somebody outside, it's a win.
So, whether that's through
our environmental education programming with school-age kiddos
outside, doing more active activities
through our urban adventure programming
so canoes, kayaks, skis, things like that.
And then, we have our community science program,
where we engage the public
in scientific activities outside in the parks.
So really, there's something for everybody to come out here.
- So, no excuses if you wanna get outdoors
and you want to use equipment that you don't have at home.
Come to Urban Ecology Center, become a member.
- Yeah. - They'll hook you up.
The action here doesn't seem to slow down,
especially during a pandemic.
- I feel like it almost amplified what we do
and made us even more relevant than ever before.
You know, when things kinda shut down,
people headed to the outdoors
to heal and to thrive
and to energize themselves, and we were here.
We were open.
Our parks were open.
They're always open twenty-four seven.
- Like, your community probably really appreciated the space,
like having it accessible to them during that time.
- Oh, absolutely.
I think, for a lot of people, they rediscovered the parks.
They've rediscovered their neighborhood parks,
more specifically,
explored their backyards and their neighborhoods.
- Love that.
The Urban Ecology Center serves as a reminder
to stop and enjoy the natural world around us.
- We hear over and over again,
any park that you visit in the city,
people go, "I had no idea I was in Milwaukee
while I was doing my hike."
Whether it's along the river
or Oak Leaf Circle here at Riverside Park, you know,
when you're immersed underneath a hundred-year-old oak trees,
it's hard to imagine that you're in, you know,
Milwaukee, it's Milwaukee itself.
Yeah, and so, I just think
it's the magic of being in the city
but also surrounded in nature.
* Everybody, let's go, go...