Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park and Vermont Atlas of Life Field Days

McFarland, Kent; Zahendra, Sara

A report summarizing two days of iNaturalist and eBird programs by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, sponsored by NPS NRSF The Vermont Center for Ecostudies created two citizen scientist field days at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park where participants learned some basics of natural history and how to use cameras, smartphones, and computers to contribute sightings to public databases. Approximately 60 people attended workshops and field excursions during the two field days. About one-third of the participants had smart phone devices with the iNaturalist smartphone application pre-loaded to learn how to collect observations for the Vermont Atlas of Life. Others had digital cameras for data collection to upload at a later time. Computers connected to the internet were available in the Forest Center to help users establish an iNaturalist or eBird account and for tutorials on how to use the sites. In all cases, it was clear that their levels of interest and excitement rose dramatically after one-on-one tutorials. Participants and field trip leaders reported 108 observations to iNaturalist during Park walks. Participants have recorded 822 observations for the park in iNaturalist. About 107 of the taxon reported were not previously recorded for the Park, demonstrating the feasibility of using citizen science to help catalog diversity for place like the Park.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park and Vermont Atlas of Life Field Days

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