February 25, 2008
Project Budburst!
Plants Opening Across the Nation and at a Location Near You!
Become part of the national field campaign to collect important climate change data on the timing of leafing and flowering in your area through Project Budburst! You, your family and friends, and your students can track trends in PHENOLOGY (such as the first bud burst, first leaf, first flower) for native tree and flower species, shrubs, ornamentals, and even weeds.
Last year this project kicked off with thousands of people of all ages tracking plants through careful and consistent observations of phenological events across the nation. This information serves scientists who use it to learn about the responses of individual plant species to climatic variation locally, regionally, and nationally. The 2007 results were compiled into the BudBurst database, available at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst/results.php.
The project was so successful in 2007 that the research community at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has decided to expand the program for 2008. Citizen-scientists (YOU!) can log on and register phenological data online at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst/index.html. This is a great opportunity to contribute to scientific information on the effects of global climatic change and learn about your local environment at the same time.
Posted by warzechac at February 25, 2008 12:12 PM