Education & Outreach

The Desert Studies Center is ideally suited for immersive, high-impact educational and outreach programs. The central Mojave Desert is a region of complex topography and geology, lying in the southern Great Basin geophysical province. This results in a rich flora and fauna, distributed among several life zones and plant communities, from alkali scrub to verdant springs to Joshua tree forests, in a landscape of rugged mountains, alluvial fans and bajadas, sand dunes, volcanic fields, pediment domes, drainage systems and playas. The diversity of the Mojave is due, in part, to its shared species alliances with the Colorado/Sonoran Deserts to the south and east, and the Great Basin Desert to the north. 

The DSC lies within the Mojave National Preserve, and is two hours south of Death Valley National Park and two hours northeast of Joshua Tree National Park. The Bureau of Land Management's California Desert District manages much of the land surrounding these preserves and parks.