We are big fans of citizen science! Of course, science is always cool, and STEM/STEAM projects are an increasing part of everyone’s work and school experiences. So understanding how science works is not just fun, but a good way to understand what is going on in the world around us all.

So we are sharing some neat science you can do, contributing toward large projects, and learning new things. Maybe you can use this today; maybe you will save it for later. As long as you enjoy some exploration and learning new things – citizen science is for you! And it is definitely something you can use to bring some good programming to your library.

This week we are looking at a cool project involving trees!

“Jungle Rhythms strives to transcribe old observations of tree life cycle events (flowering, leaf shedding, fruit dispersion), which are key to understanding a tree’s functioning. The African rainforest, the second largest on Earth, covers ~630 million ha and stores up to 66 Pg of carbon. It is presently a persistent carbon sink, offsetting large amounts of human CO2 emissions. Drought events in tropical rainforests have the potential to alter forest structure. However, due to data scarcity, little is known on how droughts affect the structure and function of African rainforests. In this project we will try to link long term observations of tree life cycle events with weather data. This will allow us to track the trees’ responses to variation in rainfall and temperature. This data may provide us with key information on how sensitive tree species are to drought, and how this sensitivity might alter the structure and function of the forest as drought regimes change.”

“Historical observations

From 1937-1958 scientists stationed at the Yangambi research station in the Democratic Republic of the Congo made an effort to observe more than 2,000 trees on a weekly basis, writing down key life cycle events, e.g. fruit development, flowering and leaf shedding. All of these weekly observations were jotted down in little notebooks and finally summarized in large hand-drawn tables. In an effort to recover the key parts of this knowledge, which currently only exists on paper, and preserve the original copy, Jungle Rhythms will transcribe the summary tables. In addition, these unique data will tell us how tropical forests respond to changing patterns in temperature and rain. As such, the data will allow us to predict the future state of the forest using historical data.

Why appeal to citizen scientists?

The nature of the notation used, mainly using fine hand-drawn pencil lines overlaying another fine gray line, make it really hard to process these images automatically. The human eye and brain is finely tuned to finding patterns and picking up these slight nuances in shading. Participants also have background knowledge of the project, and this contextual information further helps in understanding the notes. Participants are presented with yearly sections and are be asked to annotated features within the section. At the end of the project annotations will be combined into a timeline of each trees’ life cycle events and matched with weather data.

Who made the observations? And why?

All we currently know is that these observations were made by research scientists at the Yangambi agricultural research station between 1937 – 1958. During our efforts to digitize the data, we did not come across any mention of names associated with project. The age of the data set would also make it very unlikely that observers are still alive today. We do know that some of the observations were made along the roads in and around Yangambi, as we found evidence of maps referencing the number associated with each specimen. We assume that a fair amount of the observations were made in a research forest nearby. It also remains a mystery why the observations were made. As the research station was focused on agriculture and forestry, we assume that the researchers at the time might have wanted to understand the life cycle events of a trees better in order to optimize forestry practices.

As participants work on Jungle Rhythms, we will try to trace some of the data’s historic context. Looking through archives might not only provide context, but also additional data. We already posses the climate data as measured at the research station, which is key to understanding the life cycle events. We know that a similar dataset was collected at the botanical research forest in Luki on the Atlantic side of DR Congo. The two forests differ significantly in weather patterns. The existence of coordinated observations confirms that this was a deliberate experimental design, so we believe a motivation and clear description of the methods used should have been documented.”

So, how can you bring this tree-related project into your library? We have a few suggestions to help you get started:

• Make a display of books about trees and botany
• Set out all kinds of crafting supplies – construction paper, glue, pipe cleaners, etc – and let everyone make trees. Set them all up to make a forest in your library
• What is a jungle? What is a forest? Write an essay about the basics of jungles.
• Use a map to find the closest jungle to your house. Where is it? What kind of trees are growing there?
• What are original historical resources? Discuss why resources created by someone in an environment would be more valuable than someone who is farther away from it?
• Get a resources about using good handwriting. Practice your own handwriting to make it very clear and easy to read.
• Can you create a document using speech to text tools? How accurate is it? How easy or difficult is it to write papers for school using these tools?