Chandra Clarke

Offering Whatever Light I Can

Tracking the cicada

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A project mostly for fun today, especially if you’re a bug lover.

I’ve always liked bugs (well, most bugs — I could do without house centipedes or scutigera coleoptrata), and cicadae in particular have always fascinated me. They spend the majority of their lives underground, emerge in their thousands once a year, molt, and end their days after a very brief period of mating and egg laying. They also make a really cool noise, which always makes me think of summer.

WNYC is equally fascinated by cicadae, and this year, is calling on New York and New Jersey residents to help track the emergence of Magicicada Brood II, a cicada with a 17-year cycle. They want you to build a soil temperature sensor that will be able to report the temperature of the soil roughly 20 centimeters (8 inches) down, and they provide a complete parts list and easy how-to guide to get you going. Apparently this species of cicada typically emerges when the ground temperature is around 17 C (64 F).

Once you have built your sensor, you should get it into the ground by mid-April, and then you can start reporting data by going here. You can also check out their bug blog.

If you’re not handy when it comes to circuit boards or want to save some money, they recommend the following sensor at Amazon (this is not an affiliate link).

Photo by Benoit Gauzere on Unsplash

Bring your own data (BYOD): An upcoming forum

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The US Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Assistance Secretary of Preparedness and Response is hosting a day-long forum in November on citizen science and citizen generated data.

The forum is called Bring Your Own Data (BYOD): Opportunities and Challenges in Using Citizen-Generated Data for Situational Awareness, and will be held on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia.

According to Sara Harris, one of the organizers, the forum is open to anyone with an interest in citizen science, whether in government, non-profit or academia. It is not solely focused on the use of citizen science in public health emergencies, but rather will span a broad spectrum.

Topics will include:

  • Transforming research with passive citizen data
  • Bring your own data – participatory data collection
  • Building situational awareness with passive and participatory data
  • Learning from citizens generating ecological data
  • Learning from citizens sharing genomic and personal data
  • How federal agencies and partners are using citizen-generated data

For more information, and to register, please the relevant page on the Public Health Emergency website here.

Image by Digital Photo and Design DigiPD.com from Pixabay

Love astronomy? Then you should meet LARI

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American astronomer Percival Lowell.
American astronomer Percival Lowell. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Percival Lowell was a prominent Bostonian who enjoyed great wealth and greater connections. In the 1890s, excited by Giovanni Schiaparelli’s study of Mars, he decided to dedicate his personal resources to the study of astronomy: he built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell would go on to have a huge influence on early science fiction, and the work he started would eventually lead to the discovery of Pluto. It is therefore very fitting that the Lowell Observatory has launched the Lowell Amateur Research Initiative (LARI).

LARI hopes to bring together professional and amateur astronomers so that amateurs have an opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research. LARI is also designed to expand Lowell Observatory’s public outreach efforts to promote greater awareness of astronomy and related sciences.

Available research opportunities include everything from examining old LONEOS images to find asteroids, to monitoring star-forming regions to search for outburst events, to identifying and documenting some of the 500 historic scientific instruments at Lowell Observatory.

To get started, visit the website to examine the opportunities in detail, and then create your LARI account.

You otter participate

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Otters depend on healthy waterways to survive, so otter population numbers are a key indicator of how a particular water system is doing. A project in the San Francisco Bay Area Bay Area aims to keep a careful eye on river otter ecology.

The otter spotter project encourages citizens to take pictures of otters in their habitats and take down information about how many otters were seen, and what they were doing. The observations are mapped and numbers recorded to give researchers a better idea of the total otter population and health.

Otter enthusiasts who are feeling particularly helpful (and who also have plastic baggies and gloves) can collect otter scat for the project’s dietary analysis research. You can also help recruitment efforts by printing and distributing some downloadable posters.

Finally, there are some good tips on otter spotting etiquette; otters may be cuter than, say, snakes, but it’s important to remember they will bite if threatened.

Image by Cuyahoga from Pixabay