COMMUNITY SCIENCE
Community Science expands the accessibility of scientific research beyond trained experts to include science enthusiasts. Participants often contribute data such as observations or pictures to a project, and scientists use their training and expertise to find the story in that data. Our community science offerings focus on Water Quality Monitoring and BioBlitzes.
WATER QUALITY MONITORING
Our volunteer community scientists collect water quality data and monitor the ecological health of creeks in the Southern Bay Area. Community engagement at our local creeks not only increases awareness of human caused impacts of our urban streams, but also inspires stewardship of the watersheds we live in.
BIOBLITZES
Our bioblitzes bring volunteers together to observe, identify, and record as many as possible plant and animal species in a given geographic area during a specific period of time. Observations from these surveys are recorded using the application iNaturalist, a crowdsourced identification tool where community members and scientists document and identify organisms. Once the identifications are confirmed by several community members and scientists through the app, they are deemed to be research grade.