🐝 Help our pollinators (& insects): Join the Somerville Pollinator Project!

[EwA]

Amy Mertl (entomologist / Lesley University), Earthwise Aware, and Green & Open Somerville are joining forces to study and protect our pollinators (& insects) in Somerville. We need you to help us!

We're conducting different kinds of surveys to gather data about insects, and specifically in Urban settings. Photographic surveys throughout the city along transects, hosting a 'pollinator' pot at home or joining a study group at The Somerville Community Growing Center for observing, recording and counting arthropod species. Really there's something for everyone! ツ 

Check the project's highlights, and you can fill the form out to let us know how you might be interested in participating. No prior knowledge is necessary: we'll share knowledge and expertise - all that you need to know and more! » 📝 https://tinyurl.com/somerville-pollinator-project (Google Form)

#insects #pollinators #urbanWildlife #insectDecline #conservation #biodiversity #citizenScience

[EwA]

Follow-up For Those Interested in Surveying with us at the Growing Center

In Brief

You expressed interest in surveying the pollinators (& insects) at the Growing Center. I am Claire O'Neill and the founder of Earthwise Aware. We focus on protecting biodiversity, bringing communities together through ecological ethics and citizen science. As for our citizen science projects, we have several programs in the region that focus on filling knowledge gaps and helping biodiversity science locally and globally. 

About insects specifically, we've started surveying at Fresh Pond (Cambridge), Mass Audubon Habitat (Belmont) and at the Middlesex Fells Reservation (Medford, Winchester, etc.). It will be good to start surveying a very Urban area such as Somerville, and the Growing Center specifically. Part of our goals besides helping scientists is also to promote science methodology, insects and native plants & insects knowledge in our communities including helping our representatives to understand biodiversity science. We also want to provide a means for people to learn about protocol & data, and develop tools for evidence-based advocacy.

One more thing: No prior knowledge is necessary to help us: we'll share knowledge and expertise - all that you need to know and more!

Survey Activities

We'll run a few activities throughout the year (and next). 

1) First, we need to record the plants of the center (plant baseline).

2) Photo document the insect population regularly. At first, it'll be to establish a baseline and understand which order/family/genus and species visit the Growing center.

3) We'll also survey at regular intervals specific trees (and inspect tagged branches in those trees) and count and record any insect that land or feed on it.

> Quick note about protocol: There is a protocol in place to record our observations. We'll train you about how to upload reliable records and have fun while doing it!

But in short, the data is recorded in 2 very cool open science platforms -one linked to a project with the University of North Carolina, both platforms have international outreach. 

4) During the winter, we'll invite you to refine records identification together. For those interested to participate, we'll also develop an annual report exhibiting and comparing data from all our sites. This report is to report our studies findings to ourselves, to our communities, to the partner organizations, and to governmental institutions. 

Next Step

We're just staring at the Growing Center! We have a dedicated EwA page now, an iNaturalist project (EwA at the Growing Center), and a public site log that is up-and-running! 

📅 You can check our Events calendar to see when we plan our visits. For the Growing Center, we'll be spontaneous (more so than for our other sites surveys), and have them planned about a day to a week prior to a visit.

I'll be the one leading those surveys while you are with me. So you'll have a great opportunity to learn and practice until you want to do it as well on your own -or not: it's fine to keep wanting to do it in a group setting :-) The goal, besides community and science building, is also to have you monitoring when we can't, and supply additional data. The more regular and continuous our surveys are, the better it is for our pollinators, our scientists and ourselves as human Earth-citizen!

Each visit I'll start with the field task du jour, and with a short intro with important info for newcomers to give a chance to anybody to start at any point during the year. 

If you're new and you missed the project intro part, and day field duty explanations, then no worry, there's always the next event! :-) 

My question to you: When is your general day/time availability? (Give us options if possible). And if you are still interested we invite you to subscribe to our forum, so that you get updated about results, coming short-notice visits, etc. > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/earthwise-aware

Who Can Help/Attend?

Anybody really. We'll train our audience anyway :-)

Some of you have asked how many kids we accommodate. We've never run a survey with many children, so we don't have the answer to that question. We usually have young adults, adults, and seniors. We had a few young stellar citizen scientists attending on a few occasions who were certainly more mature than many adults we know :-) Children are welcome, just note that we ask anyone to follow the same rules than any of our citizen scientists: be quiet (wildlife ethics), spot without disturbing (field ethics), communicate quietly, and participate as much as possible. There's a lot of observing, moving slowly, flipping leaves cautiously, recording on camera and using data recording apps. Note that we don't "capture" unless strictly necessary, yet we move out of harm's way when needed. So, besides learning about biodiversity science, data, and protocol, our surveys are the perfect activity to learn about ethics and self-control :-)

I hope you had all your questions answered. If not, please do not hesitate to ask. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards, - Claire (Earthwise Aware)

ⓘ More about this project » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-at-the-growing-center

ⓘ More about EwA Citizen Science Program » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-citizen-science