Learning by Leading

Learning by Leading

We believe that students learn best by leading. In this innovative environmental restoration and education program, leadership skills and real-world experience combine to help our students address the earth’s most important environmental issues. The Learning by Leading™ internship program offers quarter-long and school year-long internships in which students work in a team to solve real-world problems in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. 

Image of a mallard duck in the UC Davis Arboretum.

What’s Up, Duck?

We love the ducks in the Arboretum, but too many ducks in the Arboretum Waterway can have negative impacts on the Waterway ecosystem and the ducks.
Students on the Learning by Leading Waterway Stewardship team plant sedges and rushes along the newly created banks of the Arboretum Waterway.

Waterway edge habitat provides ecosystem benefits

To provide multiple ecosystem benefits, students on our Learning by Leading Waterway Stewardship team are creating riparian (water edge) habitats around the newly constructed weirs throughout Phase One of the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project.
UC Davis Arboretum map which shows the construction detours to accommodate the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project.

Arboretum Waterway Construction Update 1.2.18

The majority of the Arboretum is still open for walking, jogging, strolling, smelling the flowers and all the other activities you normally enjoy in the Arboretum except the portion between our Australian / New Zealand collection at the east end of the Arboretum up to, but not including, the Redwood Grove.
Levy Hernandez and Emily Griswold

Consider a 2017 year-end gift to support our Learning by Leading program

Your support for the Learning by Leading program helps us develop the environmental stewards of tomorrow. Also, ten percent of your gift to the Arboretum and Public Garden Annual Fund goes to the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden Endowment which provides long-term support for our free, all-ages environmental education programs.
Learning by Leading Students

Learning by Leading

The Learning by Leading™ internship program offers quarter-long and school year-long internships in which students gain leadership experience addressing a variety of environmental sustainability, restoration and literacy issues by working in teams to solve real-world problems in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.
Arboretum Waterway with ducks

Arboretum Waterway Construction Update 10.26.17

The construction dam is down and water is now back in parts of the phase one project area. (Phase one of the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project extends from the easternmost portion of the waterway all the way to Wyatt Deck near Lake Spafford.) We're now working with contractors to test and optimize the pump system, which is an essential part of the waterflow in the Arboretum Waterway.

Arboretum Interns Support Native American Traditions, Restoration

UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery personnel hosted a group of high school students participating in the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) Youth Leadership Summit. These students, with connections to Native American tribes in California, Nevada, Hawaii and New Mexico, learned how to grow culturally important plants for a large-scale environmental restoration project on Maidu land in Plumas County.
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