A major focus of the Prairie Ridge Ecostation is to provide a field station for all North Carolinians to learn about the natural sciences by participating in scientific research. This research is facilitated by scientists at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, at area universities and organizations from around the country.
Much of the research is considered citizen science. Citizen science involves people of all ages and backgrounds in partnerships with scientists to gather valuable data for research. The following are projects from around the country that Prairie Ridge has participated in:
Great Backyard Bird Count
The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual event that recruits people from around the country to count birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across North America. Anyone can participate during the four-day count period each year.
Prairie Ridge Ecostation participates each year by counting birds on site and encouraging visitors to make bird counts of their own.
Neighborhood Box Turtle Watch
The Neighborhood Box Turtle Watch is designed as a Citizen Science project which involves citizens living in a rural to suburban neighborhood monitoring their resident box turtles. Turtles encountered in your yard or neighborhood are photographed, measured and released at site of encounter. Clear photographs of the shell pattern of box turtles are usually sufficient to identify individual box turtles. Location of each sighting is recorded on a survey plot or aerial photograph of your neighborhood which can easily be downloaded off various websites. A log is kept of individual turtles so that over time, their movements within your neighborhood will be documented. Such information gained from this citizen-science research can be useful in learning more about box turtles and how they adapt to living in an environment with humans. The more years that you are able to participate in this project, the more we may learn about box turtles.
An important secondary goal of the project is to make people more aware of box turtles living in their neighborhood. Increased awareness of box turtles can lead to a neighborhood becoming more “turtle friendly”. There are a number of routine yard activities that put turtles at risk. Some simple revision to some of the activities can reduce the risk that turtles face in the neighborhood. There are other things that people can do with landscaping that actually improves the suburban habitat for box turtles.
Box turtles are currently threatened by destruction and altering of their natural habitats as more neighborhoods are built in areas that have traditionally been in forest or agricultural lands. It is our hope that some neighborhoods can coexist with and continue to support the resident population of box turtles. But we need your help to make this happen.
NestWatch
Prairie Ridge Ecostation is one of four partner sites for the National Science Foundation funded Project NestWatch. NestWatch is a continent-wide citizen science project that recruits volunteers to monitor nesting birds. By collecting this information from thousands of people living all across the country NestWatch provides scientists with valuable data about bird breeding behavior that would otherwise be unattainable.
NestWatch is designed to be easy enough for anyone to participate. However, Prairie Ridge Ecostation offers special training opportunities for people seeking more detailed information. These trainings are called Nest Quest workshops and are offered annualy.
Weather Research
Detailed weather data can be found at the N.C. CRONOS database. CRONOS (Climate Retrieval and Observations Network Of the Southeast) is a user friendly database of archived weather information from around the State. The Reedy Creek weather station is located approximately 1-mile from Prairie Ridge and offers an excellent reference for local weather information since October 14, 1998.
To learn more about weather monitoring visit the North Carolina State Climate Office web pages for the Reedy Creek weather station.
Monitoring Macroinvertebrates
Students from across the state help us study the water quality at Prairie Ridge's pond by collecting and counting aquatic animals called macroinvertebrates. Different macroinvertebrates have different tolerances for poor water quality. By recording the type and amount of macroinvertebrates, we can make assumptions about the quality of the water. Each species of macroinvertebrate is assigned a numeric score based on how sensitive it is to water quality. By totaling the numeric scores, we determine the biotic index of the pond, which corresponds to the quality of the water. The quality of the water in your community is determined the same way.
