TCV Scotland and Amanda James of Dobbies Garden Centre have undertaken an exciting pilot Phenology Project which looked at changes to animal and plant growth and behaviour that indicate changes to the seasons. Plotting the time of these indicators against previous years across the UK allow identification of fluctuations that may indicate Climate Change induced adaptation.
(C) Graham Burns, TCV
Dobbies Garden Centre in Kinross hosts a children’s gardening group called Little Seedlings. Up to 10 children of mixed ages (from 4 to 12 year olds) come along on the first Sunday each month to work with Amanda on Dobbies’ new allotment garden.
The pilot worked with this group, using the Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar phenology survey. This was chosen by Amanda as it captured exactly the type of simple seasonal changes that they wanted to get across to their young audience. The website allows you to record and view seasonal events that show the impact of climate change on our wildlife. To do this you submit a list of locations (work, home etc) and then enter changes that you see around you. These are in categories of Spring, Summer or Autumn, with sections for Trees, Shrubs, Flowers, Grasses, Birds, Insects, Amphibians and Fungi. You simply enter the date you first observed a change and repeatedly observe and record over the changing seasons.
You get very visual feedback, which is appropriate for a young audience to understand, showing first sightings of birds, plants and animals as national time series graphs and maps. These slider operated maps and graphs show the first appearance progression of collected plants and animal records from previous years displayed across the UK.
The participants seemed to really enjoy the new animals etc that they were going to see. The pilot raised some of the children’s general interest and awareness of wildlife around them. Due to the pilot, the local School group (with some of the pilot participants in it) began to visit the Kinross Community Garden fortnightly and used Nature’s Calendar.
The participants found the pilot a fun, informative Citizen Science activity which benefited their health while increasing their knowledge of the wider environment.
The pilot was a great success and we are keen to develop more opportunities for our staff, volunteers and others to get involved with Nature’s Calendar and other Citizen Science projects. See our website for more opportunities to get involved in Citizen Science.