Case Study Overview Birds are among the world’s best ecological indicators. eBird allows volunteers anywhere in the world to submit data about the birds they see at any time and in any location. The millions of observations recorded each month, logged into a central database at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, are building a global understanding of […]
Case Study Overview In 1997, following an evening of intense rainfall in parts of Fort Collins, Colorado, an ankle-deep creek running through Colorado State University became a raging river of mud and debris. The Spring Creek Flood left five people dead and city-wide damages of more than $200 million — all for lack of warning. […]
Case Study Overview Everyone knows that many flowers come out in spring and most leaves turn color in autumn. Even small children take delight in the seasonal cycles of plants. But the timing of seasonal cycles is changing. Scientists have observed earlier blooming and later leaf fall in many plant species due to global warming. […]
Case Study Overview With its familiar pattern of orange and black, the monarch is perhaps the best known butterfly in North America. Each year, adult monarchs migrate from winter roosts to summer grounds across North America. Along the way, female butterflies lay eggs on milkweed; the eggs then hatch into caterpillars, also known as larvae. […]
Case Study Overview Landslides occur in all 50 states, costing lives and billions of dollars in damage each year. Although no federal agency systematically tracks landslide occurrence, the information is needed to test landslide hazard models and improve our understanding of landslides and their impacts. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landslide Hazards Program developed […]
Case Study Overview In 1880, a teacher named Wells Woodbridge Cooke, who was living in the Mississippi Valley, began noting the arrival dates of migratory birds. Others joined him in collecting information on bird migration; with support from the American Ornithologists’ Union, the observer network expanded across the entire United States, Canada and a portion […]
Case Study Overview The Smithsonian Institution has 138 million objects and specimens as well as 2 million library volumes. Altogether, the Smithsonian has over 157,000 cubic feet of archival material in its various collections. Less than 1 percent are on display in its 19 museums, libraries, galleries, archives and research centers. What might we learn if […]
Case Study Overview For hundreds of years, amateur naturalists — the citizen scientists of their day — recorded seasonal events such as flowering in spring or bird migrations in fall. In the late 1950s, for example, volunteers across the country mailed their observations about lilacs and honeysuckles to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2007, […]