Follow-up: Two Citizen Science Award projects at “Discovering Diversity” at the NHM

As part of a collaboration between the OeAD and the NHM, selected Citizen Science Award projects can present their research to museum visitors during the “Discovering Diversity” event series, engage directly with them through various hands-on activities, and thus communicate their research topics and processes to a broad audience.

The event on April 17 focused entirely on climate change: The “Tree-Quest” project presented an app that can measure the carbon storage capacity of trees. This data is then fed into a large network of Copernicus satellite data used for biomass mapping. The “Climate Agents” project, on the other hand, focuses on personal climate experiences gathered through interviews and social media posts about climate change, which are analyzed using AI tools and compared with scientific climate data.

After the project presentations, visitors had the opportunity to get involved and ask the researchers questions: At the microscopy station, tree rings could be examined more closely. Visitors learned how the thickness and coloration of the annual rings can be used to draw conclusions about the weather conditions during the growing season and how these rings can be used to observe climate changes over the years. A game invited participants to expand their knowledge of climate change. For the youngest visitors, there was a creative station where they could paint tree stumps. The event concluded with a quiz.

On June 12, citizen scientists can learn about the “Forest Groove” project as part of this series of events. More information is available HERE.