The Importance of Community Science

The Importance of Community Science

Community Science is the public participation in scientific research. Here at Corkscrew, community science is conducted by our boardwalk naturalists. They volunteer their time to contribute to a 22 year old data set that goes back to 1998! My job is to organize and format this data set into Microsoft Access, and then from there we can look at relationships and trends within the data set.

Looking back at the data, we can ask questions that we never knew to ask. For example, we can ask why a certain species was seen at one point in time and why it doesn't currently get recorded. Were there changes in the environment that were unfavorable to the species? If the species is migratory, were there changes to the environment in their breeding range that prevented successful reproduction? As you can see, one can ask many more questions just by looking back in a large data set.

Not only does looking at data help answer these questions, but you can also get insight from the data collectors themselves. I have met with a number of the volunteer boardwalk naturalists and have had discussions on how the data is collected. I have also asked about previous migration events and which songbirds were seen, and when these events occurred. Being familiar with these patterns will help me understand the data better when looking at it from an outside perspective. Overall, I like looking at this data set and I can't wait to see what can be discovered.

-Brian Fedak, Research Intern