Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

CCBER involves itself in community education through UCSB courses, field guides, placement of interpretive placards, workshops, seminars, and a K-12 environmental education program.[8] It also provides field and lab-based resources for faculty, staff, and students at UCSB.[9]

The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration promotes the teaching of diverse undergraduate courses in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, Environmental Studies, and Geology and graduate courses in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. It also supports faculty, staff, and student research interests by providing valuable resources such as research collections and natural areas for scientific study. CCBER satisfies the university's obligation to provide stewardship of campus lands, rich in biodiversity, and the ecological restoration program encourages land restoration on the campus. Through outreach programs such as Kids in Nature and taxon-focused workshops, CCBER fulfills the K-12 and community educational goals, while staff and faculty curators collaborate to provide scientific information and advice to private entities and other academic institutions.

• Internship Program
• Restoration Seminar
• Kids In Nature
• Tours
• Workshops
• Classes

CCBER manages over 300 acres of open-space land between the Goleta Slough and Elwood Mesa in Goleta, California. CCBER's management areas include: East Bluff, Campus Lagoon, Lot 38 Bioswale, Manzanita Village, North Bluff, North Campus Open Space (NCOS), North Parcel, San Clemente, San Joaquin, Sierra Madre, South Parcel, and Storke Wetland. The spaces managed by CCBER are characterized by coastal dune, oak woodland, coastal sage scrub, grassland, and wetland ecosystems. (ccber website)

Restoration methods include non-native species removal and reintroduction of native species, and removing any man made materials or structures from the land. For example, the NCOS was a former golf course before CCBER restored the wetland and upland habitats that previously existed there.

Restoration and conservation of land is made possible through the scientific research conducted on CCBER's natural history collections. CCBER is using research to understand how ecosystems will shift as a result of climate change and come up with adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce the negative impacts of global climate change.  

CCBER's main research groups include: the Coastal Ecosystem Restoration Research Program, Arthropods of Coastal California, Plant Speciation via Hybridization and Allopolyploidy, Natural History Collection Information Science, and Endangered Endemic Plants.

CCBER also conducts research by monitoring wildlife, partnered with iNaturalist and the Audubon Society.

Founded in 1945, CCBER houses over 350,000 botanical and zoological specimens. For over 60 years these valuable collections have contributed to the research and educational missions of UCSB.Natural history collections and collection-based research are vital to discovering, understanding, and documenting biodiversity and to informing public policy on such issues as invasive species, climate change, evolution, and emerging public health threats. Natural history collections represent the irreplaceable documentation of life on Earth.CCBER's collections are available for use by university faculty, researchers, staff, and students as well as community members, including biological consultants, governmental agencies, K-12 educators and their students.