This past year EcoSpark launched its first ever Greenbelt Youth Ambassador program!

Citizen Science is a participatory approach to environmental research where participants learn about local green spaces by contributing collected scientific data to real studies. Typically organized or managed by professional scientists, the collection of crowdsourced data sets are utilized to both gain a better understanding of the world around us, and answer practical and pressing questions.

Fresh water is the cornerstone of life everywhere. It’s necessary to keep our bodies healthy and thriving, and is an integral part of our well-being and happiness.

Glen Stewart Ravine is another great example of a green gem hidden within the bustling city limits of Toronto.

Phragmites australis, also known as Phragmites or Common reed is a prolific invader of wetlands, and has been deemed one of the worst invaders by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada1. Keep reading to learn more about Phragmites and how EcoSpark can help you fight invasive species.

Benthic Macro Invertebrates (BMI’s) are important environmental indicators of the health and integrity of watersheds and for this reason, can be effectively utilized in urban stream studies. EcoSpark assembles preserved BMI study sets that are used to teach students how to collect and identify these species.

Lynn Short is a Professor and Researcher at Humber College in Horticulture. She is also the owner of a cottage in Tiny Township on Georgian Bay, where she developed an innovative technique to remove invasive Phragmites (common reed) without herbicides.

Every year, International Youth Day takes place on August 12. This day was declared by the United Nations General Assembly on December 17, 1999 to promote the empowerment and inclusion of youth. Today, youth make up 1.8 billion people on the planet – the largest in history!

When I was a young student, I was originally given the impression that geography was about memorizing the map of Canada along with its provinces and territories. Towards the end of high school, I was told by family members who had studied geography at university that there was so much more to the discipline than I could have ever imagined.

World Town Planning Day takes place annually on November 8th and is an international day celebrating the importance and great contributions of planners in their communities whether they are urban or rural. According to Statistics Canada, about 86% of the population lived in urban areas while 14% in rural communities in 2011.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency in the US, household waste rises more than 25 percent between Halloween and New Year’s Day. To celebrate Waste Reduction Week (October 16-22), EcoSpark has compiled a list of 10 ways to make this an eco-friendly holiday.

Climate change and the recent severe weather events that have come with it are a growing concern around the world. One way scientists see the impacts of climate change is through environmental monitoring.

EcoSpark's work and impact spans the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. We are a far distance from any ocean, yet we feel the impact of its health. Despite the space between us and the sea, there are still things we can do to help!

Ontario is home to seven different species of turtle, all of which are species at risk. Click to find out what “species at risk” means!

I’m an aquatic/landscape ecology PhD student from the University of British Columbia. I’ve been working with EcoSpark since last summer to develop a citizen science protocol to examine how an ecological process, decomposition rate of cotton strips in headwater streams, might change when land uses in watersheds are different.