Citizens' Environmental Coalition

🌱Go batty and fly high with the bats this weekend and then skim the surface, helping with an international plastic pellet pollution count before diving deep into the lives of ocean creatures. Join the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Houston Area Bat Team to learn and discover as they share fun, educational facts and insights about these miniature, flying mammals while watching up to 300,000 plus colony that lives under the Wagh Bridge emerge at dusk! Invite your family and friends, bring a picnic blanket, wear your bug spray, and admire this unique phenomena. May 15th 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. Tiny plastic pellets are frequently spilled, leaked, or dumped into the environment by the petrochemical & plastics industries during manufacturing & transport. Join Fenceline Watch and citizen scientists from around the world as we work together to identify where this plastic pollution is occurring & make a case for action. Saturday, May 16, 2026 8AM -10AM Register: /forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc81gFu-sSnmSakEMsdlW5HtjNzuPrZLrHJMxchHNiYSb0hyA/viewform Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is inviting the community to visit our open house for a day of ocean, science, and corals. Featuring marine scientists, underwater technology, lionfish demonstrations, hands-on activities, and more, this free event is open to the public. 10am - 2pm Questions? Email [email protected].�Location: Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Headquarters, 4700 Ave U, Galveston, Texas 77551 Bikes & Bats Bring your bike for an evening ride along Buffalo Bayou with BikeHouston and Buffalo Bayou Partnership to the Waugh Bridge Bat Colony, where you’ll witness an unforgettable sight—more than 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats emerging at sunset.Spots are limited. Reservations required. For more info on these events: check the CEC calendar: /members/calendar4_responsive.php?org_id=CEC

🌱Results for the 2026 City Nature Challenge are in! Thank you to all of those who participated -- the observers and the IDers! Check out the global stats and interesting observations, and stay tuned for some stats and observation from the Houston-Galveston City Nature Challenge Team coming soon!

🌱Want to go for a a walk? Urban Paths is a Houston-based walking wellness company founded by wellness coach Laura Conely. Through guided walks, coaching sessions, and community events like 713Walks, Urban Paths encourages people to connect with nature, art, culture, movement, and one another while improving their physical and mental well-being. The organization focuses on making wellness accessible through mindful outdoor experiences that celebrate Houston’s parks, neighborhoods, and cultural districts. Join one of the free recurring wellness walks with Laura at Buffalo Bayou Park, Hermann Park, or Memorial Park. For more information: /

Today at 10 am.: Don't miss out on a chance to learn how to weatherize your home/apartment and save money on you energy bills!

🌱f you would like to help identify the thousands of observations that were made by the Houston-Galveston City Nature Challenge Team, check out the tips from iNaturlalist about how to do it. The expert IDers are the heroes of this project! But you don't have to be an expert to help out. /HouGalCNC

🌱📢The Member Spotlight of the Week is the Friends of Woodland Park 🚴‍♀️ The Friends of Woodland Park, Inc. is dedicated to preserving & improving Woodland Park's natural habitat along with its unique historical significance to the City of Houston, & to providing for the enjoyment & education of all who visit. Learn more about the organization on their website here: / #community #environment #houston #cechtx

Maintaining your A/C filter helps lower energy use, improve indoor air quality, and keep your home cooler during Houston’s hottest months. A few quick reminders: ✔️ Change filters every ~3 months ✔️ Check your filter’s MERV rating based on your household needs ✔️ Double-check filter size before purchasing Small actions at home can add up to meaningful energy savings across our community. This tip is brought to you by Citizens’ Environmental Coalition in partnership with the City of Houston’s Green Building Resource Center and made possible thanks to a generous grant from the CenterPoint Energy Foundation. @centerpoint_energy

🌱Houston Audubon native plant sale @ Edith L. Moore Native Nursery; 440 Winchester blvd; Houston 8 a.m. - 11 a.m. Help Houston Parks Board plant out new wetland swales along Hunting Bayou! For all ages. Registration required. Houston Arboretum & Nature Center Connection Communities. Fun for all ages - bird hikes, ASL story time, sensory nature walk, GRIT All-terrain chair demonstrations, crafts and yard games, Little Free Library book drive, blood drive, food trucks 10:00 a.m. - noon. White Oak Bayou Association is hosting a guided bicycle tour of the lower White Oak Bayou area led by Historian Andrew Groocock. 10 a.m. Tickets required. Pocket Prairie and Great Grow Out Workshop; a hands on pocket prairie and native plant grow out workshop designed for communities of faith with Coastal Prairie Conservancy. A volunteer from Native Prairies Association of Texas will teach the group how to establish a pocket prairie. 2- 4 p.m. For more information: /members/calendar4_responsive.php?org_id=CEC

🌱📢The Member Spotlight of the Week is the @npsot_hou 🌻🌿 The Native Plant Society of Texas - Houston Chapter promotes the conservation and use of native plants through monthly educational meetings, field trips, plant sales, & the annual Wildscapes Workshop. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, they provide resources for local native gardening, manage native plant gardens at the Houston Zoo, & promote ecological sustainability in the Houston area. #community #environment #houston #cechtx

🌱The observation period for the City Nature Challenge is over; we have till May 10th to upload any observations we haven't already uploaded and to ID the observations. The Houston-Galveston team has been doing great so far. Let's take it to the finish line. For those who have not been participating and wat to know more about the City Nature Challenge -- it is a four day period when people around the world photograph the wild in their area (plants, animals, fungi) and upload them to iNaturalist to help us all better understand biodiversity in our area and around the world. Check out the City Nature Challenge website: /

🌱Welcome to the 4th and final day of the City Nature Challenge photographing portion!! It’s your last chance to get out there and take photos of the wild creatures with whom we share our city and have them count towards the Harris-Galveston team’s total observation count. If you haven’t gotten out there because you are thinking there's nothing wild in the city, I saw 3 kinds of birds, a moth, a honey bee, and twenty plus plants in a Home Depot Parking lot and adjacent median strip. Hot tip for the last day: To make delicate details clearer in a picture, hold a piece of paper behind the plant Reading this post, and don’t know what the City Nature Challenge is? It’s a fun global community science event taking place from April 24 -27 that gets people outdoors to photograph local wildlife and contribute to a worldwide effort to better understand biodiversity. To find out more about the City Nature Challenge, watch this short video: /shorts/nxn9r4rPJGk or check out their website: /

🌱The Houston-Galveston CNC team is doing great! Despite the hot humid weather, the team was out in force making observations. We still have two days left of the challenge, so if you haven't done it yet, start taking pictures with you iNaturalist app and contribute to an understanding the the biodiversity in our area.