Bob Allen
The Southeast Pinal County Master Gardeners are pleased to invite you to our Community Education February event. “How Your Citizen Science Data Helps Conservation” will be presented by Katy Prudic, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, on Feb. 14 as a free Zoom presentation.
Many of us participate in citizen, or community, science programs such as eBird, iNaturalist, Nature’s Notebook, and eButterfly. Whether we are collecting or cataloging information on butterfly migration, bird counts, or plant disease patterns and infestations, our observations do matter. How that data is cleaned, stored, shared, and used for conservation action is a black box for most citizen scientists. This data is important for evaluating species of concern, predicting the impacts of climate change, targeting habitat enrichment, and training the next generation of scientists and conservationists. Dr. Prudic will discuss the general pathways your animal or plant observations help spur conservation action while also providing examples from the southwest desert.
Dr. Prudic has been involved with the creation of software applications and programs for citizen scientists and the use of that information. Her findings have been published in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy, and Proceedings of the Royal Society and featured on BBC, National Geographic, and in the New York Times, among others.
Join us on Feb. 14 at 1 p.m. for this free Zoom presentation. Visit our website at extension.arizona.edu/southeast-pinal-county-master-gardener. Once there, click on “Events.” If you have questions about registration, send an email to [email protected].