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Become a “citizen scientist” and help track nature’s calendar at a National Park

Saturday, April 11 at 10 a.m. — WOODSTOCK — The National Park Service’s Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) monitors nature’s calendar of plant blooming, bird song, and frog peeping in many national parks in the northeast. Observing this schedule gives insights into nature’s patterns and changes. These patterns, called phenology are important to pollination, agriculture, and other important ecological relationships that affect us.

Want to be a “citizen scientist” and help to collect this data? Volunteers are needed for this spring and fall field seasons to adopt some monitoring stations at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. The project involves collecting observations of the budding, blooming, and leafing of plants, but motivated volunteers may be trained to monitor wildlife, too. Volunteers will be trained to identify target plant species and a weekly time commitment is needed to adopt a study plot. 

Training and orientation will be held at the park’s Forest Center from 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 11. Get your science on and help with this research! To register for the training, or for more info, contact 802-457-3368 x 17 or Jo_Anne_Dolan@nps.gov.

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