Learning the Nature of the Santa Monica Mountains

"I found a spider," 8-year-old Carlos Velez yelled just before his older brother Pablo ran over and stepped on it.

"No, you're supposed to catch them," Carlos said, then walked away with his plastic container to find another one.

Finding spiders was just one of the many events at the Santa Monica Mountains Science Festival held April 16 and 17 at Paramount Ranch.

Nearly 3,000 people attended the two-day event that featured more than 50 activity stations, lectures, a campfire kick-off, a bird walk and plant pressing.

Event organizers hope to make the festival an annual activity for those interested in learning more about the Santa Monica Mountains and its resources.

"We have gotten an overwhelming response from the public and we would like to keep them engaged in the nature and environment around us," said Lena Lee, the festival's organizer. "We want to show locals what we have. Most people don't know there is something like this in their backyard." 

In partnership with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and sponsored primarily by the Santa Monica Mountains Fund and National Park Service, the science festival attracted 31 organized school and community groups. Transit to Trails provided transportation from urban centers to Paramount Ranch.

During the spider activity, researchers from the Natural History Museum led a group of young hikers to find spiders in the shrubs of the mountains.

The museum is working on a spider survey of the area and hikers contributed to the research by capturing eight-legged insects in a plastic container, labeling their findings with their name and donating them.

"The public can participate by doing some of the things that our scientists do," said Lauren Newman, a public information officer with the National Park Service, "and the scientists can share their research."

The park service is actively engaging in research on native and non-native plant species as well as the bobcat and mountain lion communities of the Santa Monica Mountains.

At the pollination station, 5-year-old Noe Fine from Topanga Canyon pulled apart a California bush sunflower.

"Sunflowers are composite flowers—meaning they have many flowers in them,"  Ian Nicholson, a National Park Service planner, said to a group of schoolchildren as they ripped apart the plant.

"Oh, you found a bug in yours," he told two young girls. "Youcan take it to the park entomologist."

On the other side of Paramount Ranch, visitors worked with plant specialists to learn more about native greenery.

Tony Valois, a vegetation ecologist with the National Park Service, shared with visitors the SAMO Flower Finder, an online database he developed that offers non-technical users a tool to narrow down their search and find a plant. 

SAMO uses seven characteristics, such as the time of year that a flower blooms and the shape of the flower, to find its name and species.

"Just here in the mountains we have 1,200 species," said John Tiszler, a plant ecologist. "There are a lot of plants out there, and they are all green. That's the hard part."

Marie Barnidge-McIntyre of Thousand Oaks and her 9-year-old son Michael spent both days of the weekend-long event armed with binoculars, searching for new facts about the Santa Monica Mountains.

"Nature is hugely important, and I've encouraged my son to get dirty and learn about things that are fossilized and not," Barnidge-McIntyre said. "Everyone who has gotten into science has generally started as a kid and so this event gives children an opportunity to open new vistas."