csassign
ants on an orchid, by Jonathan Landsman

Putting Everything Together: Describing and Planning the Urban Wildlife Corridor

Congratulations if you have made it this far; you have reached the most exciting and enjoyable part of science. The data is collected, the field work is done, and there is no more protocol to follow. It's time to open up your stride and get creative, looking for the bigger picture.

As time passes, citizen scientists like you will add more and more observations of plants to the map. Now we know a bunch of exact locations where native plants are growing, and where insects and other animals are able to go to live and obtain food. Thanks to you, we have a lot of information, and now it is time to turn that information into action.

Log back in to the Google Map to begin exploring the data. You'll see there are a few maps in your account under the "My Maps" tab. So far, you have only worked on and edited one, the "Miami Wildlife Corridor." This map shows all the data entered by students like you, but we also have three other maps:

Be patient when you load maps and don't try to load them all at once. The park and endangered lands maps are very large.
By clicking the checkboxes next to one of the other maps while "Miami Wildlife Corridor" is also checked off,
Large maps have too many points to display at one time. To see marked places in the area of the city you want to see, you'll need to page through the map placemarks using the arrows at the bottom left of the window, until you see marked areas that interest you.
you can see the data gathered by you and your peers in the context of other useful information, gathered by other scientists. In this way, you can read your work in context of the big picture of what is going on with the wildlife of the Miami area.

By looking around the map, you will see places where points are close together, and some places where a lot of space separates one point from the next. To see how far apart, you can estimate using the scale in the lower left corner of the map. You can also use the line drawing tool in edit mode to draw a line between two points; Google will give you the length of the line. Are the fragments points close enough together to form a corridor? That's for you to decide and argue in your booklet.

Booklet for the Challenge Assignment

To download and print the Environmental Action Challenge assignment page, see the Resources section.

To score points for the Environmental Action part of the Fairchild Challenge, you need to create a booklet detailing your work and its impacts on individuals or homes, a school, and a community. The work you are doing has an imapct on all of these groups when you use your data to plan how you would improve Miami area habitats for wildlife.

Using the map data and your background research about our native plant species and the pollinators they attract, focus on answering this central question:

Main question: Where in the city do we need more native plant species in order to connect habitat fragments into a corridor? Who controls the land where plants need to be planted and how would you encourage them to develop habitats?

You do not have to tackle wildlife in the entire city to answer this question; in fact a very specific and nuanced view of a neighborhood you know best could be the best way to tackle it. Your report on your neighborhood of choice could then be joined with others' work, to build towards a bigger picture.

Other questions for consideration and research:

These are just suggestions! Skip some of these questions and develop your own as you see fit!
  • What species of butterflies and other insects do our plants attract and how far can they fly between feedings?
  • Are the habitat fragments close enough together to allow significant travel between them by pollinators, seed dispersers, and other animals that plants depend on? What will the result be if they are not?
  • Where in the city are native habitats numerous, and where are they rare? Why? How could this be changed?
  • What kinds of land exist where plants need to be planted? To connect a corridor of habitats, do we need to plant in parks? Schools? Private gardens? Curbside gardens and street medians? Where else?

Ideas for your booklet:

  • A map of your planned corridor: for a base, you can start with a printout of the Google Map and add other points according to your plan, or start with a map of the area purchasable at many local office supply and department stores, or hand-draw your own.
  • Research about the plants you observed and how facts about their biology and ecology affect the plants' health and use to humans in the urban landscape.
    • These are just suggestions! Don't feel that your creativity is compelled or limited by them!
  • Suggestions of additional plants that you believe would make good native corridor species.
  • Reports on research about animals you observed and others that play a major role in an urban wildlife corridor.
  • A description of how your neighborhood differs from the plant and animal life in other parts of Miami-Dade.
  • A plan of action and supporting publicity or educational materials for involving members of the community whom you feel are crucial to the success of corridor development.