Each class K-8 has chosen a species of local animal to study and collect NatureMapping data. K-spiders, 1st-butterflies and moths, 2nd- birds, 3rd-insects, 4th-reptiles, 5th-wildflowers and weeds, 6th-fossorial mammals. We have produce a native plant garden, a field guide that we add to each year, a school mural. We study on the schoolgrounds, at a local creek area, in a local canyon and on a local mountain so the students can compare common animals and plants from 4 different areas.
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Karen Dvornich
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This presentation is one of three focus point presentations delivered on day one of the Citizen Science Toolkit Conference (at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York on June 20-23, 2007) as part of the opening session titled “Citizen Science Challenges and Opportunities.” Vaughan discusses the importance of citizen science. He describes the Ecological Management and Assessment Network (EMAN), which he coordinates, and shares lessons learned.
Project BudBurst engages people from across the United States in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and flowers. Project BudBurst participants take careful observations of the phenological events such as the first leafing, first flower, and first fruit ripening for a variety of plant species including trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, weeds and ornamentals. Project BudBurst is particularly interested in observations of native plant species. The citizen science observations are reported online to a national database. As a result valuable environmental and climate change information is being collected in a consistent way across the country. Scientists can use this data to learn about the responses of individual plant species to climatic variation locally, regionally, and nationally, and to detect longer-term impacts of climate change by comparing with historical data.
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University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Office of Outreach and EducationChicago Botanic GardenUniversity of MontanaSandra Henderson
Each year over 120,000 Tasmanians go fishing at least once. Imagine...120,000 potential scientists collecting valuable data about the marine environment! We did. Welcome to Redmap! We invite the community to spot, log and map marine species that are uncommon in Tasmania, or along particular parts of our coast, addressing key knowledge gaps in partnership with industry and community. Redmap has proven to be a useful engagement tool to raise awareness about climate change.
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University of Tasmania, Australia
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This PDF includes a synthesis of presentations and discussions that took place at the Engaging and Learning for Conservation Workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research, held at the American Museum of Natural History on April 7 & 8, 2011. During this series of workshop sessions, participants are introduced to six key questions or overarching issues in the emerging field of public participation in scientific research, and to seven “steps” or stages of program development in an intentional program design process. The questions and steps are presented in a matrix that serves as a tool
Amphibians represent an important part of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the northeastern United States. The Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) monitors forest amphibian populations in order to track trends that may warn of ecosystem degredation and to direct conservation actions. Specifically, this monitoring program is designed to help scientists: 1. Determine changes in forest amphibian populations. 2. Establish and better understand correlations between forest amphibian population sizes and forest health. Salamander monitoring is attractive and appropriate for middle and high-school aged volunteers because activities take place in fall and spring when school is in session and because techniques are simple and straighforward.
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National Park ServiceBrian MitchellAdam Kozlowski
You are invited to join Project Squirrel, a Citizen Science program for all ages. Participation only takes a few minutes--simply log on to ProjectSquirrel.org to tell us about the squirrels in your neighborhood. Join people all across Chicagoland as we learn more about the ecology of our neighborhoods through the eyes of squirrels. For more information go to www.projectsquirrel.org.
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Peggy Notebaert Nature MuseumUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoWendy Jackson
A real-time, online checklist program, eBird has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. By maximizing the utility and accessibility of bird observations made each year by recreational and professional bird watchers, eBird is amassing one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources in existence. The observations of each participant join those of others in an international network of eBird users. eBird then shares these observations with a global community of educators, land managers, ornithologists, and conservation biologists. eBird documents the presence or absence of species, as well as bird abundance through checklist data. A birder simply enters when, where, and how they went birding, then fills out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing. Local experts review unusual records that are flagged by the filters. eBird data are stored in a secure facility and archived daily, and are accessible to anyone via the eBird web site and other applications developed by the global biodiversity information community.
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Cornell UniversityNational Audubon SocietyChris Wood
Monarchs in the Classroom provides a wide variety of materials and professional development opportunities for teachers, naturalists and citizens throughout the US. Two groups of behind the scenes people work together in a unique partnership to make this program successful: classroom teachers and scientists committed to sharing their expertise with the broader community. All of our programs reflect this partnership, combining real science with techniques that work for teachers, students and citizens, and promoting practices in which children learn science in ways that reflect the inquiry methods used by scientists to understand the natural world.
Operation Possum was a large-scale, community-based study of possums in South Australia. In 2008, Operation Possum collected data about possum species, how people manage possums, and participants’ attitudes towards possums, with a total of 2,234 online surveys completed from 462 different suburbs and towns. The conservation of wildlife living close to people can be complex, especially when the species behaves in ways that disturb or distress people, as possums certainly do. However, we found that a general admiration of possums, with a caveat regarding their less desirable behaviours, defined the relationship with these adorable yet troublesome marsupials: the paradox of the possum. Results from this project, including information about possums, stories submitted by participants, management strategies (and their effectiveness), and an introduction to Citizen Science, have been published as a book - The Possum-Tail Tree: Understanding Possums through Citizen Science.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Philip Roetman
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This presentation by Sam Droege was delivered as the opening talk for the Citizen Science Toolkit Conference at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York on June 20-23, 2007. This presentation was also delivered at the first conference session, “Citizen Science Challenges and Opportunities.” Droege addresses the value of citizen scientists, volunteer data quality, data management, and lessons learned.
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Sam Droege
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This PDF includes a synthesis of presentations and discussions that took place at the Engaging and Learning for Conservation Workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research, held at the American Museum of Natural History on April 7 & 8, 2011. In this final set of workshop breakout sessions, participants learn about and discuss how they can become involved in activities beyond this workshop that will carry the field of PPSR forward. Those activities range from building a new association for PPSR, to addressing concerns about data management, to development of evaluation instruments to