Who's Living in Your Backyard?
Currently our Who's Living in Your Backyard project is inactive: pending funding.
Children of all ages are fascinated by wildlife and are often surprised to learn of the diversity of wildlife living in their own neighborhoods. At the same time, residential development has profound impacts on wildlife and is the leading cause of habitat loss in the United States. This project will create a pilot youth education and citizen science project to explore the interaction between wildlife and people in developed landscapes. This pilot project will intersect with the Montana Common Core Curriculum where students apply their skills in writing, exposition, critical listening, mathematics, and problem solving. It will help students develop skills in critical thinking and deeper analysis. Students will join a network of citizen scientists who deploy remote cameras to capture wildlife images and contribute to a scientific study of how human development influences wildlife and have a lot of fun in the process. Remote cameras are an ideal tool for citizen science because they are fun to use, create a direct connection between volunteers and area wildlife, and produce high quality data that are as good as those collected by professional scientists. In addition, volunteers can deploy cameras on private lands where it can be difficult for scientists to work.
Craighead Institute will provide remotely triggered wildlife cameras to fifth, sixth, and seventh-grade teachers. These cameras will be loaned to students to monitor wildlife in their backyards. Each camera location will be accurately located using GPS so that animals recorded can be attributed to neighborhoods in a GIS. Other cameras will be deployed at bridge underpasses and culverts to monitor animals crossing roads. Craighead Institute staff will develop lesson plans in collaboration with Bozeman and Ennis, Montana, school district teachers and administrators to discuss human-wildlife interractions and the effects of human development and activity on wildlife distribution. Students will then explore the images (data) collected. Which species appear? Why do some species appear in some areas and not in others? Is the presence of a species good or bad? How do roads affect wildlife?
Through these lessons, students will gain appreciation of the complex relationships between people and wildlife by understanding how human activities influence wildlife both positively and negatively, and how wildlife interact with humans. The resultant teaching module will then be offered to other classes throughout the Rocky Mountain region, and even nationwide, in subsequent years. Additional elements of the environmental education component, to be funded from other sources, will include communications and outreach to teachers and administrators throughout Montana to highlight this pilot program and to work with them to include the lessons in their own schools using the lesson materials as they become available on the web. A web site with lesson supplements will be set up for students to access for homework assignments. A homework assignment for each lesson will require students to view online material and use internet links to other sources of information in order to answer questions. Facets of land use and development, and its effect on wildlife habitat, can be used by students in writing, presentation, and mathematical exercises.
As the project proceeds a database will be developed that identifies which species have been found in a wide variety of residential neighborhoods. Spatial information such as housing density or lot size can then be correlated with species lists; at what housing density does exclusion of different species occur. What density can be allowed and still have elk, deer, or other species that landowners might desire? This should provide valuable information for planning and regulation. A follow-up lesson will help students understand what species are present in different neighborhoods and give them an opportunity to hypothesize why certain species are excluded.
The project will give students opportunities to participate in actual scientific research from data collection to publication. Students will contribute to a larger database of images collected by other classrooms and volunteers. Scientists will interact with students through social media, webinars, and classroom visits as they analyze data to understand how residential developments impact wildlife and develop conservation strategies to minimize those impacts. In this way, students become directly involved in real science to help answer some of the most important questions in wildlife conservation today.
Craighead Institute will provide remotely triggered wildlife cameras to fifth, sixth, and seventh-grade teachers. These cameras will be loaned to students to monitor wildlife in their backyards. Each camera location will be accurately located using GPS so that animals recorded can be attributed to neighborhoods in a GIS. Other cameras will be deployed at bridge underpasses and culverts to monitor animals crossing roads. Craighead Institute staff will develop lesson plans in collaboration with Bozeman and Ennis, Montana, school district teachers and administrators to discuss human-wildlife interractions and the effects of human development and activity on wildlife distribution. Students will then explore the images (data) collected. Which species appear? Why do some species appear in some areas and not in others? Is the presence of a species good or bad? How do roads affect wildlife?
Through these lessons, students will gain appreciation of the complex relationships between people and wildlife by understanding how human activities influence wildlife both positively and negatively, and how wildlife interact with humans. The resultant teaching module will then be offered to other classes throughout the Rocky Mountain region, and even nationwide, in subsequent years. Additional elements of the environmental education component, to be funded from other sources, will include communications and outreach to teachers and administrators throughout Montana to highlight this pilot program and to work with them to include the lessons in their own schools using the lesson materials as they become available on the web. A web site with lesson supplements will be set up for students to access for homework assignments. A homework assignment for each lesson will require students to view online material and use internet links to other sources of information in order to answer questions. Facets of land use and development, and its effect on wildlife habitat, can be used by students in writing, presentation, and mathematical exercises.
As the project proceeds a database will be developed that identifies which species have been found in a wide variety of residential neighborhoods. Spatial information such as housing density or lot size can then be correlated with species lists; at what housing density does exclusion of different species occur. What density can be allowed and still have elk, deer, or other species that landowners might desire? This should provide valuable information for planning and regulation. A follow-up lesson will help students understand what species are present in different neighborhoods and give them an opportunity to hypothesize why certain species are excluded.
The project will give students opportunities to participate in actual scientific research from data collection to publication. Students will contribute to a larger database of images collected by other classrooms and volunteers. Scientists will interact with students through social media, webinars, and classroom visits as they analyze data to understand how residential developments impact wildlife and develop conservation strategies to minimize those impacts. In this way, students become directly involved in real science to help answer some of the most important questions in wildlife conservation today.
