When: February 17-20, 2017 Where: Anywhere you like, including your own backyard Every year, the Audubon Society and Cornell University host the Great Backyard Bird Count. Joining in is easy: First, register for an account at the GBBC website. Then, spend at least 15 minutes bird watching on one of the three days of the count. That’s Click to read the full post.
Category: Citizen Scientists
Save the Date: Water Flea Toxicity Workshop
The City of Lodi has set dates for a free workshop for Storm Drain Detective students, using water fleas, otherwise known as Ceriodaphnia dubia, to determine toxicity levels in water.
Needham students learn about Lodi Lake through leaf packs
On November 21, the shore of Lodi Lake was abuzz with activity. The fifth-graders in Mrs. Martina Ruiz’s class at Needham Elementary School were there to work alongside Barbara Transon of Lodi Unified School District, Watershed Program Coordinator Kathy Grant of the City of Lodi, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists Donnie Ratcliff, Kes Benn and Erin Click to read the full post.
Xerces Society celebrates 20 years of the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count
Each fall, monarch butterflies retreat to groves along the Pacific coast in California to settle in for the winter. Every year, the Xerces Society, an organization dedicated to conserving all kinds of invertebrates, gets together to count how many arrive for their annual vacation. The butterflies nest in about 400 locations from Mendocino County here Click to read the full post.
Resources for wannabe citizen scientists
If the leaf pack project at Needham Elementary School has you curious about taking on your own citizen science project, look no further. There are plenty of organizations that work with people throughout the U.S. to observe the natural world. Citizen scientists are important contributors to the scientific community, because they give researchers more data Click to read the full post.
Needham Elementary students make leaf packs
On Thursday morning, students in Ms. Martina Ruiz’s fifth-grade class at Needham Elementary School became citizen scientists for a few hours. Their mission: Create eight leaf packs weighing exactly 30 grams each, which will be used to monitor the health of Lodi Lake and the Mokelumne River. But first, they had to review what they Click to read the full post.