Wildlife CSI (Compost Scene Investigation) – Summer 2013
July 1 to August 18
Registration: Is now closed.
Entirely Internet-based and free of charge, this seven-week citizen science project is geared for middle school and high school science teachers and related environmental educators. From their own computer, participants will contribute to an actual research project, situated at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and investigating how human activity – composting – influences the behavior of scavenging wildlife. Additionally, researchers at Trent University in Ontario are investigating how this citizen science activity relates to participants’ personality characteristics, attitudes, and psychological well-being. As part of this latter study, you will be asked to complete (on-line) two short surveys, one at the start and one at the end of your participation in the project.
Food waste is now the primary category of the solid waste reaching landfills and incinerators. Residential composting of kitchen scraps thus offers an attractive means of waste reduction, yet its effect on the ecology of scavenging wildlife has received very little attention. For example, although the composting of animal-based kitchen has been long advised against, on the grounds that it attracts scavengers, the effects of this practice have never been tested experimentally. As part of such an experiment, we need your help in analyzing the multitude of images stemming from wildlife monitoring cameras recording scavenger behavior at compost piles in eastern Connecticut.
Here’s how. Following an instructional webinar, you will use our on-line tools to identify and count birds and mammals in these images. You can thus contribute to the project at your convenience while at home or traveling. By doing so, you are helping to advance our understanding of scavenger ecology. Participants can form teams for some friendly competition. Through a social network we will communicate about CSI and related ecology.
Webinar – Introduces Project’s Resources
While learning about various features of the project via a webinar, you will have the opportunity to direct questions concerning the details of participation. You will sign up for one webinar session (one hour long) and will receive info on how to link into the webinar from your own computer. Webinar sessions are scheduled (Eastern Time indicated) for
- Monday, 1 July at 12:00 p.m.
- Monday, 1 July at 7:00 p.m.
- Tuesday, 2 July at 12:00 p.m.
Citizen Science Tools – The Nuts and Bolts of Participation
The on-line Field Guide teaches you how to identify the various bird and mammal species encountered at the compost piles. After you pass the Qualifying Quiz (“open-book” with multiple attempts allowed), the Image Database serves you actual images. With the database’s pull down menus, you categorize the wildlife in an image and then submit that categorization. We suggest a minimum participation level of 80 image categorizations per week, an amount that can be accomplished in about one hour.
Based on your experience this summer, we encourage you to consider how to use these citizen science resources in your teaching. How could they be used in your classroom to address learning standards?
Team Play – Some Summer Fun
To add further fun to citizen science, the project allows participants to form teams. For example, you could team up with colleagues from your school or region. To add international flavor to this citizen science competition, teams from Canada will match up with teams from Connecticut and further afield in the United States.
A team could consist of several participants or a single individual, if you prefer to go at it solo. If you want to play on a team, but lack interested colleagues, indicate that as you register, and we will assign you to a team of similarly situated participants. We encourage you to come up with a catchy name for your team (e.g., the Cunning Coyotes, the Waterbury Woodchucks, or the Ontario Otters). Note that the project’s Web-based nature allows teammates to contribute independently of one another (i.e., you don’t need to coordinate the time or location of each member’s activity), but your collective efforts to accurately categorize images will advance your team’s standing.
After each of your sessions, the database reports both your individual contribution statistics and those for your team. The team statistics are adjusted in a per capita manner to account for varying team size. Team standings (based on the contribution value, a metric that considers both the number of images categorized and accuracy) will be posted weekly. At the end of the competition, some modest prizes will be awarded. The top-ranked team will share gift certificates totaling $300; the second-ranked team will share certificates totaling $200; and the third-ranked team will share certificates totaling $100.
Social Network – CSI Communication
A social network, accessible from the CSI portal, but also linked as a Facebook group (if you prefer that approach), will provide a channel for communication regarding this citizen science project. There you will find project announcements and can post questions and comments to the group. In addition to the weekly posting of team standings, the network will highlight aspects of our scavenger ecology research. It will also connect relevant ecological studies to your citizen science experience, potentially providing ideas that you could incorporate into your own teaching.
Questions/Further Information
If you have questions regarding the ecological project, please contact Prof. Scott Smedley, Department of Biology, Trinity College, Hartford, CT at scott.smedley@trincoll.edu. If you have questions about the related psychological study, please contact Prof. Elizabeth Nisbet, Department of Psychology, Trent University, Ontario, Canada, elizabethnisbet@trentu.ca