Tags: Citizen Science

Highlights:

•     Seven groups of 40 volunteers recorded 25,287 individual birds, and 118 species

•     The most common birds recorded were Canada Goose, European Starling, Ringed-bill Gull, Herring gull and White-throated Sparrow

•     Highlights for the Freshkills Park territory included Orange-crowned Warblers and a Baltimore Oriole

 On December 18th Staten Island held its annual National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.

This May and June, over 100 students and teachers from Staten Island travelled to Freshkills Park to volunteer in the introductory phase of a new water monitoring program. They were studying the quality of Main Creek, a tidal waterway that runs through the park.

Patrick is an AmeriCorps member serving through the NYC Service Civic Corps program. During his time at Freshkills Park, he has been a driving force behind the new citizen science water monitoring program, inviting volunteers to study water quality and better understand the health of the wildlife at the park.

Last week, a New York Times article featured the work of one man, Eymund Diegel, and his hydrology studies of the Gowanus Canal. One of the tools he employed was aerial mapping using a helium-inflated balloon with a handheld camera attached.

The NY Times reported that American science is becoming increasingly funded by philanthropic donors, for better or for worse. Supporters of philanthropy cite accomplishments such as medical advances and meeting scientific funding needs in the face of government budget cuts. Others, such as the authors of a Nature editorial, note that philanthropic funding is skewed towards “fashionable” fields such as health, space, and the environment, and is disproportionately allocated to well-known universities.