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Nothing says spring like the sound of pollinators buzzing around newly opened flowers. But their numbers have been dropping in recent decades. Given that 87% of flowering plants depend on pollinators, this decline has major implications for everything from the fruit you eat to the ecological health of our landscapes. Thankfully, there is a great deal that each of us can do, and a new 10-hour online course offered through the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment promises to turn the pollinator-curious into a swarm of well-informed practitioners able to turn our rural, suburban and city environments into pollinator-friendly spaces.

The Pollinator Steward Certificate Program, designed and led principally by UMass Extension pollinator specialist Nicole Bell, is a 10-hour course comprised of 30 lectures featuring 14 instructors who are experts in everything from the pathogens that afflict different pollinators to the specific plants that ensure a healthy habitat. 

While many people think of honeybees when they hear the word “pollinator,” there are over 400 bee species that live in New England, many of them native. And then there are all the wasps. And moths. And flies. “All of these many species are crucial members of the ecological web,” says Bell, “and of the economic web. Pollinators, even the ones that may have more of a negative public perception, like wasps, provide billions of dollars a year in ecological services, pollinating many of our favorite foods and flowers.”
 

Bell had noticed that, while there are many active non-profit groups dedicated to pollinator conservation, few public universities offered robust outreach education on the topic. This changed in 2023, when the Massachusetts State Legislature made a special appropriation for UMass Extension thanks to the leadership of State Senator Jo Comerford and State Representative Natalie Blais, among others. This line item in the budget of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources supported critical equipment purchases in the UMass Soil Testing Lab and other areas, and also launched the hire of four new Extension educators specializing in urban agriculture, soil health, integrated pest management — and pollinators.  

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The self-paced class is open now, and includes six modules (three focused on the ecological and biological foundations, and three focused on how to plant and manage sites to ensure that pollinators have food and shelter throughout the year), discussion boards for networking, the opportunity for a one-on-one session with a UMass Extension expert and a certificate upon successful completion of the course.

“We designed the program to be a balance between foundational ecological knowledge and the practical creation and management of pollinator habitat,” says Bell. “The course is really targeted toward those who are not already experts, and we hope not only to turn them into knowledgeable practitioners, but experts within their own communities who can advocate for more pollinator habitat.”

“This is one of our prime goals at UMass Extension,” says Jason Lanier, Extension specialist and the Commercial Horticulture group leader at UMass Amherst. “We want to enable people to become their own education leaders, so that they can take what they learned with us and spread it throughout their communities.”

The Pollinator Steward Certificate Program is being offered at a discounted rate of $199 through the month of February. All details and registration are available here. It is one of a number of certificate programs that UMass Extension offers, including UMass Extension’s Green School, the UMass Winter School for Turf Managers and UMass Extension’s Invasive Insect Certification Program.