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The Urban Ecology Collaborative was formed in the fall of 2002, when scientists, educators and managers working in a number of cities in the northeast met in New Haven, Connecticut.
At the first meeting, UEC founders created a vision for a structured partnership that would allow urban areas across the region to pool resources and expertise. The founding partners included NGOs, municipal leaders and university partners from six of the most urbanized areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions: Boston, New Haven, New York City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. In 2007, Philadelphia and Providence joined the UEC.
The members of the UEC are committed to the vision that through structured and targeted collaboration, each organization can have a much more powerful impact at local, regional, and national levels. The UEC organized itself around working groups, one for education, one for urban restoration projects, a research committee, an outreach committee and a steering committee. The history of the UEC is the history of the accomplishments of these working groups, sharing models and developing joint programs across cities.
The Restoration Tools Working Group of the UEC goes beyond meeting the needs of residents in our respective cities for safe, attractive open spaces, to actually advancing the field of urban restoration through creating a shared multidisciplinary urban and community forestry framework that includes biophysical and social guidance. Participating cities share, develop, and replicate models to build stronger and healthier communities.
The Education Working Group (UEC-EWG) is a partnership of state agencies, nonprofit organizations, intra-city environmental education networks, universities and public schools in the six UEC cities. The organizations that make up the UEC-EWG are leaders in their own cities who are working to coordinate the delivery of environmental education programs to urban youth, conduct professional development for urban public school teachers, and conduct multi-city education research. By using a collaborative learning process across partner cities, UEC is beginning to efficiently replicate and evolve successful models for community-based ecological restoration and education. The UEC supports the development of strong and diverse collaborative networks within each city that will increase municipal and NGO effectiveness in transforming our cities.
Research Working GroupWith support from the US Forest Service, the UEC research working group has launched a cross-city research consortium in Urban Ecology. The deliverables to date include: the development of a stewardship mapping study; the design and launch of an annual research meeting in urban ecology; and the development and launch of a research and tech transfer dissemination program.
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