mar-apr-2020

THE BEE BOX What’s All This Buzz About Citizen Science? You see him getting into his truck very early in the morning but his vest sports no lures, he carries no tackle box, and where is the rod and reel ? Where in the world is he going at this hour with those binoculars ? Turns out he’s one of the thousands of citizen scientists around the nation who spend a winter day counting every bird they see or hear for the annual Christmas Bird Count. This bird census administered by the National Audubon Society is one of the longest running citizen science efforts since 1900. Is citizen science going on in the world of almonds and honey bees ? Citizen science had been taking place long before the organized bird counts. The term citizen science, while coined sometime in the last 25 years or so, has varying definitions but it is easiest to think of it as the general public helping to collect and, at times, analyze data for research projects in conjunction with professional scientists. Yet centuries ago, specialized training didn’t lead people to figure out how things worked, instead it was insatiable curiosity that drove their research. Think about our first astronomers, explorers, inventors and farmers. Now that most of the public has easy access to a highly computerized field data collector, their smartphone, we all can serve as citizen scientists, and often do. On the highway if you are about to drive through a speed trap your GPS app, perhaps Google Maps or Waze, asks you to confirm if the trooper is still pointing the radar gun at your vehicle when you drive through those coordinates. The public is providing data for these GPS systems to deliver information to other drivers in real-time. Perhaps even unknowingly to you your smartfridge is talking to its mothership and you are involved in citizen science by default. Backcountry skiers can carry sensors for avalanche researchers, families send in their DNA to genealogy sites, hikers map unplugged orphan well sites so that they can be safeguarded, photographers snap photos of today’s landscapes to compare to lithographs in history books, relatives check themselves in as safe on Facebook after a natural disaster, voters participate in exit polls after elections, all of these citizen science activities contribute to datasets in some way. Opportunities are endless in terms of the public assisting in scientific discovery and bees and almonds are ripe for it. The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) depends on citizen Bees and almonds: opportunities abound for citizen science. The term citizen science, while coined sometime in the last 25 years or so, has varying definitions but it is easiest to think of it as the general public helping to collect and, at times, analyze data for research projects in conjunction with professional scientists. IN YOUR ORCHARD 2 6 A L M O N D F A C T S