In October I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is a mecca for avian scientists around the world.
The Lab's reputation as a world center for science, conservation, outreach and outside-of-the-box thinking is overwhelming for a young scientist like myself- and going there to meet some of the team was an inspiring experience. Below are a few of the amazing projects that the Lab runs which I think are worth sharing:
The Lab's reputation as a world center for science, conservation, outreach and outside-of-the-box thinking is overwhelming for a young scientist like myself- and going there to meet some of the team was an inspiring experience. Below are a few of the amazing projects that the Lab runs which I think are worth sharing:
On my visit, I met Nancy Trautmann, director of education, who told me about the Lab's many programs for teaching people about ecology, conservation, and of course- birds!
'Bird Sleuth' is a program for K-12 students that gives both students and teachers the resources needed to integrate bird-related research into the school curriculum. Students are encouraged to get outside and use their powers of observation and exploration to shape and answer questions about birds. In addition to teaching kids about biology, animal behavior and ecology. In doing this, they put the scientific method to use to answer questions that they are interested in. This experiential learning can be an incredibly powerful tool to teach critical thinking and creativity. Students also learn to appreciate and understand science, and to learn about conservation in their region. The annual publication of individual and group projects about birds conducted by students is brilliant (and their artwork is great!)- I highly suggest giving it a read.
The lab has an extensive series of teaching resources for the Physics of Animal Behavior, further reaffirming my belief that birds are a great mechanism for learning about a lot of different topics in science. Physics would have been much more interesting to me in High School if we'd learned about it in the context of animal movements.
'Bird Sleuth' is a program for K-12 students that gives both students and teachers the resources needed to integrate bird-related research into the school curriculum. Students are encouraged to get outside and use their powers of observation and exploration to shape and answer questions about birds. In addition to teaching kids about biology, animal behavior and ecology. In doing this, they put the scientific method to use to answer questions that they are interested in. This experiential learning can be an incredibly powerful tool to teach critical thinking and creativity. Students also learn to appreciate and understand science, and to learn about conservation in their region. The annual publication of individual and group projects about birds conducted by students is brilliant (and their artwork is great!)- I highly suggest giving it a read.
The lab has an extensive series of teaching resources for the Physics of Animal Behavior, further reaffirming my belief that birds are a great mechanism for learning about a lot of different topics in science. Physics would have been much more interesting to me in High School if we'd learned about it in the context of animal movements.
The bioacoustics section of the lab is world renowned. As an undergrad at Cornell, I did a research project with Carlos Botero, who was doing a PhD at the time. My input into his project involved listening to and identifying the songs of tropical mockingbirds which were recorded at his field sites in Bonaire- but which I listened to on a computer in a windowless room in Ithaca in the middle of the winter. I used a program called Raven, which was developed by the Lab of O and which is being used for bioacoustics research around the world. Participating in this project as an undergraduate research project gave me my first taste of real science- and led me down the path to becoming a researcher myself. I just loved the idea of discovering something for the first time, and enjoyed the detective-like work that was needed to pull together different sources and previous research to write the introduction to my final report. Thanks bioacoustics research program!
eBird, which I talked about in a previous post, has been used to develop detailed and informative spatio-temporal exploratory models (STEM). These models are built from the citizen-science sightings of a given species across North America, and then combined with information about habitat, weather patterns, and bird behavior to predict the likelihood you'll have of spotting a bird in a given area of the country. The resulting 'heat maps'- which show areas where birds are expected to be seen as white flare ups on the black background of the USA- are at once inspiring and jaw-dropping. The movements of birds like the Horned Lark (map shown below) can be visualized as the seasons change through the year- and the predictions look like storms moving across North America. Geographical features such as California's central valley and the Mississippi river become visible as either brightly lit beacons, or dark patches, depending on the season. On closer inspection at the Lab, Marshall Lliff and I spotted the Sutter-Butte mountains as an obvious light patch in the northern central valley- the data is that detailed! Part of my purpose for visiting the lab was to brainstorm with some of the scientists there about the possibility of using this high-powered data to investigate trends in bird ranges and agriculture- a side project that I'm hoping will develop more over the next two years.