CITIZEN SCIENCE UPDATES

Can kindergarten students participate in citizen science? Are five-year-olds able to conduct research and present their findings? Can I integrate my entire curriculum around birds? I think so, and I am looking forward to giving it a try, after having participated in the Lab’s Classroom FeederWatch workshop at Utah State University this past summer.

The weeklong workshop had 14 educators from 5 states, covering grades K–12. We honed our bird identification skills while canoeing the Bear River, hiking the trails of Logan Canyon, and wading the shallows of Bear Lake. We gained the enthusiasm and confidence to set up FeederWatch stations on our school grounds, enter and retrieve data from the Web, and conduct inquiry-based science at all grade levels.

I am excited by the start of the new year and all the promise it holds. This year, my inspiration comes on the wings of birds, thanks to Hallie Magden and Anne James from the Lab of Ornithology, and the family of educators I met during the workshop.

The 15th FeederWatch season begins November 10, 2001. Participants who have already renewed should receive their research kits by late October. Participants who recently joined should receive their materials about three weeks after they sign up.

Visit our web site for instructions on how and when to count your birds so you can get started right away.

Read the FeederWatch Annual Report in this issue. Last winter was an exciting year for FeederWatchers in the western states. Pages 6–9 highlight the irruption of montane species in the West and discuss other regional trends. Additional results are posted on the web site.

Congratulations and a warm welcome to Marta Dennis of Lincoln Elementary (Petoskey, Michigan) and Lenea Martel of the Dunbar Magnet School of Math, Science, and Technology (Tampa, Florida), recipients of the Classroom FeederWatch Scholarship. Both have received a free Classroom FeederWatch membership for the 2001–2002 school year.

We thank all participants who responded to a questionnaire that we sent earlier this year. We have begun to incorporate your feedback into our web site and future curriculum.

If you are a registered participant, please join our electronic discussion group, a great way for teachers and students to share information and ideas online.

Electronic discussion group —to sign up, please send your request, including your full name and e-mail address to classroomfw@cornell.edu. You must be a Classroom FeederWatch participant to register.

Our project assistant, Mike Powers, has just been hired as project leader for a new citizen-science project at the Lab to develop an online checklist. Congratulations, Mike! And welcome to Marilyn Moskal, who will now share her time with The Birdhouse Network and Project FeederWatch.

Nesting season is officially over but our web site will still accept your valuable nest box data to be included in our year-end analyses. Help us to understand the breeding biology of cavity-nesting birds by submitting your data today. If you’ve already submitted your data—THANK YOU—they are very much needed and appreciated!

Electronic read-only newsletter —to join, send an e-mail message to listproc@cornell.edu. Leave the subject line blank. In the body of the message type “subscribe TBNnews-L yourname”.

Don’t forget to submit your PigeonWatch data for the December 1 deadline. We hope to have Internet data entry ready by then. To help test this online data-entry system, send an e-mail message to pigeonwatch@cornell.edu. If you’ve already volunteered, you’ll be hearing from us soon.

This fall we will begin developing Urban Bird Studies projects. Have you observed any interesting birds or bird behaviors in cities? Send us your observations to help kick off Urban Bird Studies.

Participants, thanks to your data, our research team has been able to study the effects of acid rain on the Wood Thrush (see “For Birds in Forested Landscapes”). In August, Stefan Hames presented the results at the annual meetings of the Ecological Society of America and the American Ornithologists’ Union. To read the abstract, see http://www.fmnh.org/aou/01abook.pdf, abstract #394.

We hope everyone with Web access will try our new online data entry system. It’s easy. To get started, click on our web site’s data entry tab. Remember also to send in hard copies of your field forms and maps so we can verify your data if needed. Please mark on your forms that you have entered your data via the Web.

Electronic discussion group —to join, send an e-mail message with your name and e-mail address to forest_birds@cornell.edu.

Read about how our participants have contributed to our understanding of House Finch eye disease in the Autumn 2001 issue of Living Bird . As we continue the study, please consider joining our survey. We especially need participants from western North America to determine whether the disease is spreading to the West.

Participants, we hope you’ll enter your data via the Web—it’s easy with our new and improved data-entry form. Web data entry requires a slightly different method of data collection, so please click on “Data Entry” from our home page and read the instructions carefully. We look forward to hearing from you.

Suggested citation: Citizen Science Updates . Birdscope, newsletter of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Autumn 2001. www.birds.cornell.edu

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Miyoko Chu, Editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, New York. Phone (607) 254-2451. Email mcc37@cornell.edu