Citizen Science Month 2023 - Part 2

Do you love citizen science? We do!

We at the Science Math Resource Center are fans of citizen science and are building a Citizen Science Network. We will send this occasional e-newsletter to share news and information about citizen science events and opportunities at MSU, in Montana and across the country. If you have an item to share, an idea for building the network, or a question, please contact the MSU Science Math Resource Center.

April is Citizen Science Month!

We are smack dab in the middle of the year’s biggest citizen science celebration. April is always Citizen Science Month, an annual event from SciStarter and partners. Citizen Science is a global movement that involves people from all walks of life in real science that matters to them. There is so much to share that this newsletter is Part 2 of all the action....if you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

Join the MSU Campus Tree Trek to celebrate Citizen Science Month

Did you know that Montana State University is home to more than 1,800 trees? If you can find just six of them, you can earn a prize.

Six different trees on the MSU campus have been tagged with a sign and QR code. When you find a tree from the Campus Tree Trek, see if you can identify it. Then, scan the code to see if you’re right! People who find all six trees can earn a prize from the Science Math Resource Center. A map of the trees’ locations is online. The Campus Tree Trek ends May 1, 2023.

The project is brought to you by the SMRC and Dr. Danielle Ulrich’s Plant Physiology Ecology Lab to celebrate Citizen Science Month 2023. More Citizen Science Month activities are on the SMRC home page.

Four citizen science kits are available for checkout from MSU Library

Montana State University is offering a new way for citizens to help scientists and contribute to national science projects.

The MSU Science Math Resource Center is partnering with the MSU Library to provide four citizen science kits that all MSU Library users, including community borrowers, may use for free. A citizen science kit holds everything needed to gather data for a specific citizen science project. Each kit was field-tested by librarians and patrons and includes a printed activity guide, helpful tips, and any specialized tools or materials needed to complete the project, as well as information about student researchers in Montana. The kits are all linked to national citizen science projects and focus on light pollution, pollinators, biodiversity and water.

Thanks to Montana NSF EPSCoR for sponsoring this program and bringing more STEM to the people of Montana! Read the full MSU News article by Anne Cantrell here.

There is still time to join our MSU BioQuest team

You can still join MSU's BioQuest Challenge team and compete against other universities around the world to collect sightings of local wildlife, including wild animals, plants, and fungi, as we can. You can play from campus, home, or anywhere around the Bozeman area.

To join, follow the QR code here or on SMRC’s Citizen Science page to be redirected to the QuestaGame app, where you can photograph and upload images to the QuestaGame database directly from your phone. Alternatively, you can search for the team “Montana State University” in the app and request to join our quest – our team’s password is “montana”.

For more information, please contact Julia Wente, SMRC’s STEM Project Coordinator. For additional information about the app, refer to the BioQuest website.

Check out more on our MSU Citizen Science Network page

This newsletter is brought to you by the MSU Science Math Resource Center with support from the NASA AEROKATS and ROVER Education Network (AREN) and Montana NSF EPSCoR