(Image: carnivorespotter.org)

Do the people that declare “official” days or months all confer? Is there a shared calendar somewhere that they all use? How do they figure out scheduling conflicts? Surely they couldn’t have made April 1 both National Greeting Card Day, National Sourdough Day, National Love Our Children Day, and well, April Fools Day?

Despite the rather farcical nature of these various days, I still think the symbolic nature of honorific days or months is important. These are opportunities to reflect and consider different facets of cultural heritage that can be quite compelling and draw real connections and action. For example, I love Earth Day, even if it does provide torrential greenwashing from corporations actively depriving us of a healthy planet. (A Bloomberg ad I saw recently was particularly infuriating, consisting of strung together movie clips that encouraged optimism about the environment, which felt like someone standing on high ground, watching a group of people drowning in a river saying “Just come up here, it’s fine. Swim harder, you’ll make it.”

Ramble aside, my point is that these various days and months are what we make of them. As it happens, April is both Earth Month and Citizen Science Month, two things that are actually the focus of this month’s article (not my bad jokes and ranting). Thankfully in this case, these things complement one another.

As a result, I have some opportunities to share to help celebrate.

But first, I need to briefly discuss something that comes up a lot when talking about science that crowdsources data. A lot of people, myself included, might use and consider “Citizen Science” and “Community Science” interchangeable. In the strictest sense, they are not interchangeable terms. Community Science was first used to describe science that is initiated and run by a community within the lens of environmental justice. Think of a community suffering from the weight of industrial pollution coming together to document and prove that a corporation is doing serious harm to the people living nearby.

So in a way, when a biological scientist creates a project and asks for community engagement, calling it “community science,” it’s co-opting this term. Of course “citizen” is also problematic because citizenship is not a prerequisite for engagement. The people who coined the term just wanted to distinguish that non-professionals were involved in citizen science, (though typically studies are run by professional scientists).

Without getting twisted in knots over which is the right term to use, and fully knowing that it’s Citizen Science not Community Science Month, let’s move forward. A little context is useful but really I just want to encourage you to get out and do something for your local environment. Now, that could look like pulling ivy (an Earth Day special around these parts), which is valid and important – but it’s not science because there’s no question involved except the one you answer when you pull ivy: “Will this help?” and “Oh yes, that helped.”

My favorite thing about biological science that draws non-professionals to collect and analyze data is that it makes the work stronger. (I am also going to sidestep all the discussion about the validity of data collected in this manner.) By that I mean that it gets people to see the world through a different lens, potentially leading to a meaningful change for all parties involved. This might be a sunny view of things, built on belief, but I stand by it.

Getting out to pay attention to the natural world is a fun and worthy thing in and of itself. But what if you could do that while also helping us better understand nature (including ourselves)? What if you could provide data to answer questions that could never be asked without the support of more than a handful of biologists? That’s the whole point here and I think that’s a completely valid reason to participate in the following projects (that are only a few of many options available) in and around Capitol Hill. I hope you can find a project that is fun to engage in!

And by the way, if you are reading this on Sunday, April 16th, happy National Eggs Benedict and Wear Your Pajamas to Work Days – now that’s a match!

Carnivore Spotter: “The Seattle Urban Carnivore project is a partnership between Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle University and aims to explore how mammalian carnivores live and interact with people across urban and suburban areas in the Seattle region.”

Report your sighting of a racoon, coyote, or a number of other carnivores – domestic carnivores like a stray cat need not apply – it’s an easy one off, that helps understand distribution of these mammals within an urban/suburban context.

(Image: The Seattle Bird Collision Monitoring Project)

Seattle Bird Collision Monitoring: “The Seattle Bird Collision Monitoring Project is a community science initiative that seeks to understand and prevent bird window collisions in the Seattle area.”

Pikes/Pines has talked about this project being run by Josh Morris, Urban Conservation Manager at the now, Birds Connect Seattle (formerly Seattle Audubon). It’s too late this season to be a part of their organized surveys on the Hill, but you can choose a week between now and the end of May to do your own survey. (Yes, it’s a bit of a bummer but it’s important information that could help inform building standards locally and across the globe.)

Western Redcedar Dieback Project:“The pilot project is designed to aid and promote research about the western redcedar dieback because our partners identified it as a primary forest health concern for PNW communities”

Run by the Forest Health Watch Program in partnership with WSU Extension, this project collects data on the iconic native tree species, Western Redcedar (Thuja plicata), which has been in decline across our region. Help track and understand the impacts of climate change and check in on your local cedar. (This is also the only project on my list that focuses on a single species.)

Budburst: “Budburst is a collection of researchers, educators, gardeners, and community scientists working together to illustrate the human impacts on the natural world around us. We tell that story through data collection, data sharing, education, and personal connections.”

Less locally focused (and decidedly less grassroots looking) but well worth your time, use their app to track plant phenology and plant/animal interactions in relation to climate change. If you like simplicity and low commitment, this one’s great.

Projects nearby

Living Snow Project: “The Living Snow Project’s goal is to engage the outdoor recreation community in research that is characterizing the biodiversity of pink snow and its impact on snowmelt dynamics”

Like to get into the mountains? Scoop up some of that watermelon snow and send it into the project! (Fun fact: that pink color helps protect the organisms forming pink snow, mostly algae from UV damage.)

(Image: PNW Bumble Bee Atlas)

PNW Bumble Bee Atlas: “The PNW Bumble Bee Atlas is a collaborative effort between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to track and conserve the bumble bees of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.”

Though now only focusing on areas that haven’t had as much survey coverage, this project is worth checking out. We all know pollinators are important and this work seeks to better understand their diversity and distribution.

Cascades Butterfly Project: “The Cascades Butterfly Project is a long-term monitoring program where citizen scientists (volunteers) and National Park Service Biologists monitor subalpine butterflies and plant phenology.”

You’ll have to get in touch with them to see about joining in, but this is a great excuse to frolic in a mountain meadow. We could all use a bit more of that!

For a list of more projects (a few of these links are dead but it’s a good list nonetheless): https://greenseattle.org/community-science-in-seattle/