{"id":123830,"date":"2020-07-30T12:37:16","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T22:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=123830"},"modified":"2020-07-31T10:27:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T20:27:33","slug":"uh-hilo-opihi-citizen-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/07\/30\/uh-hilo-opihi-citizen-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizen scientists expand data collection for UH<\/abbr> Hilo researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"people
OPIHI<\/abbr> citizen scientists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo marine science and biology students, faculty and staff bring the classroom to the community through citizen science, where the public voluntarily participates to collect data from the field, contributing greatly to the understanding of complex issues.<\/p>\n

In the ongoing project Our Project in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s Intertidal<\/a> (OPIHI<\/abbr>), middle- and high-school students and teachers across the state are trained to conduct ecological sampling surveys in the intertidal zone of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s shores.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew
Matthew Knope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fifteen years ago as a graduate student at UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa, Â鶹´«Ã½Hilo Professor of Biology Matthew Knope<\/strong> was an instructor for OPIHI<\/abbr>. He is now helping with outreach for the project to increase community-engaged learning. The OPIHI<\/abbr> outreach allows students to hone their scientific communication and leadership skills and serve as positive role models for the younger students.<\/p>\n

In Hilo, 12 teachers have participated in the OPIHI<\/abbr> project with citizen-scientist students from eight junior and senior high schools. The teachers are accompanied by UH<\/abbr> Hilo marine science instructor and Marine Option Program<\/a> coordinator Lisa Parr<\/strong>\u2019s undergraduate students who serve as scientific assistants in the field.<\/p>\n

Knope credits the success of the outreach on coordination between the marine science<\/a> and the biology<\/a> departments at UH<\/abbr> Hilo, in addition to the College of Education at UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa<\/a> and many educators and students throughout the entire state. “Its success is really due to the synergy of everyone\u2019s efforts,” he said.<\/p>\n

Solving current issues<\/h2>\n
\"Rebecca
Rebecca Webster and Catherine McTighe (Photo credit: Raiatea Arcuri)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly two decades\u2019 worth of data from the OPIHI<\/abbr> project of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> shores were collected and recorded so far by citizen scientists. Some of that data is now being used in Knope\u2019s laboratory at UH<\/abbr> Hilo by graduate students.<\/p>\n

Marine science student Catherine McTighe<\/strong> is using the OPIHI<\/abbr> data to investigate if climate change has a measurable effect on the total abundance and number of species of invasive versus native species of algae in the intertidal zone.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Webster<\/strong>, a graduate student in tropical conservation biology and environmental science<\/a>, is using the ecological data gathered by the OPIHI<\/abbr> project, in combination with sea-surface temperature data from satellites, to study how intertidal algal and invertebrate communities in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> may have changed in response to increasing sea surface temperature.<\/p>\n

\"John
John H.R. Burns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Citizen scientists also play an important role at UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s Multiscale Environmental Graphical Analysis (MEGA<\/abbr>) Lab<\/a>, directed by John Burns<\/strong>, assistant professor of marine science and data science.<\/p>\n

When NOAA<\/abbr> predicted a significant ocean warming event in late summer of 2019, Burns and Kailey Pascoe<\/strong>, the MEGA<\/abbr> lab\u2019s coral reef research technician, reached out to diving companies to solicit assistance with monitoring coral reefs to detect coral bleaching.<\/p>\n

In response, Aquatic Life Divers, a diving company in Kona, Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, was able to recruit seven citizen divers on very short notice to assist Burns and Pascoe with data collection. After receiving a crash course in structure-from-motion photogrammetry, the volunteers were able to collect data from 30 standardized sites on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island.<\/p>\n

“The volunteers expand the spatial area of the data that we are able to collect,” Pascoe said. “We hope we can teach more communities to collect this kind of valuable science going forward.”<\/p>\n

For the full story, visit UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

—By Leah Sherwood<\/strong>, a graduate student in the tropical conservation biology and environmental science program at UH<\/abbr> Hilo<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Citizen
Citizen scientist divers (Photo credit: John Burns)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marine biologists highlight the important contributions citizen scientists make to help solve ocean issues in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[254,95,175,262,232,14,907,9],"class_list":["post-123830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-biology","tag-college-of-education","tag-marine-biology","tag-marine-science","tag-tropical-conservation-biology-and-environmental-science","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-hilo-stories","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123830"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123921,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123830\/revisions\/123921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}