Citizen Scientist

The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History was founded on the concept of the Citizen Scientist – individuals that don’t necessarily have formal scientific training but are in touch with their natural surroundings. Often they contribute to the body of scientific knowledge through research-related tasks such as observation, measurement, or computation.

Below is an educational update from the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and demonstrates the Museum’s commitment to understanding our environment. (The mission of the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is to preserve biological diversity in the living environment by inventing and implementing business and educational strategies in the service of conservation.)

Cape Cod BioBlitz
The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History yesterday played host to a group of national researchers, educators and experts in a variety of biological disciplines.

They were on hand to conduct a demonstration BioBlitz, a tool for biodiversity exploration, education and investigation. The goal: Organize the natural history talents of the top scientists and naturalists living within urban centers to document the biodiversity present at their back door.

Not just the trees, flowers, lichens, birds, flies, beetles, butterflies, bees, crabs or fish - everything. The distribution, occurrence and patterns of plants and animals are nowhere completely documented on Earth.

The BioBlitz is a first step toward closing that gap. Informal in organization, it can be molded by the sponsoring group to fit the circumstances and talent pool of the region. A successful BioBlitz can provide baseline data to inform residents about biologically diverse areas and identify important trends.

Many museums, natural history societies, universities and communities want to know what biological life is present and how common it is (to quantify it) on local parcels of land. Often, many towns have no information about the most basic distribution of plants and animals in their area.

The Biodiversity Day drew experts on birds, insects, global-positioning system mapping, mammals, marine invertebrates and plants.

They spent the morning in the field, despite the damp, chilly weather. More than 100 participants were mobilized into roving teams - each with a special expertise – that went afield from 9 a.m. until noon.

Each field team was comprised of a scientist/expert, naturalist, a cyber tracker - the person who carried and operated a hand-held device that recorded sightings and GPS coordinates that sent them electronically to home base at BioBlitz central - a student recorder for the naturalist, a student runner to deliver data to BioBlitz central and a photographer.

The program can be likened to an environmental rapid-response identification S.W.A.T. team.

This, fortuitously, was not a full-blown BioBlitz, as the weather and temperatures would have badly skewed the effort and results.

The event was organized by Maureen McConnell and Bud Ferris of the Boston Museum of Science and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. Peter Trull, a science teacher at the Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans, accompanied 16 students from grades 6 through 8 to the museum. Trull noted how ''proud he was of all his kids'' as they relished the opportunity to engage in field work. Rachel Lake, 12, of Orleans, said she ''loved learning about the animals,'' as she returned on a trail to headquarters. The students impressed the visitors, as well as museum volunteers, with their enthusiasm, knowledge and field skills.

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