© 6th Happiness (via Wikimedia Commons)
Last summer I spent a glorious week in Boyds Mills, PA. Among the memories I brought back from that week was this curiousity: firefly activity there was much higher than in my own backyard. Are there more fireflies in Pennsylvania? Are they more active? Did I simply sit and watch for fireflies more there than I normally do at home? Are fireflies in my own backyard on the decline? Happily, I now have an opportunity to examine these questions more carefully …
FireflyWatch is a citizen science project hosted by Boston’s Museum of Science. Its goal is to help scientists “learn about the geographic distribution of fireflies and their activity during the summer season,” and anyone can participate. You’ll find more information at the FireflyWatch website.
As some of you know, I am working on a book about citizen science. The number of organized and easy-to-use citizen science projects I have found over the past year has been staggering; I plan to continue introducing them here, because I will never, ever fit all of them in my book. Please help me spread the word by sending teachers and others who might be interested in these activities here. A click on the citizen science tag will bring up a handy page with all the relative entries.
Happy exploring!
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