Overview
Bee Hunt! grew out of a partnership between Discover Life and
The Great Sunflower Project, which now has 75,000 registered participants.
Bee Hunt! has two major goals. One is scientific; the other, educational.
In science, there are critical questions that can only be addressed on a continental scale
with a large network of study sites. Such issues include global warming,
pollinator decline, invasive species, and other environmental factors.
Within education there are new challenges that must be addressed.
To prepare for the work force of the future, students do not need
to memorize a large number of facts. Instead, they must be taught
to think logically and creatively, and be facile with new skills
such as data management and sharing information through the web.
Bee Hunt! is an opportunity for students and others to gain these
skills by participating in and learning from a large scale scientific study.
Although citizen science is gaining traction in the educational community,
its reputation is stained amongst many scientists because of its general
lack of quality control in data collection. Bee Hunt! is not citizen science.
Bee Hunt! will follow rigorous research protocols and error-checking methods
and adhere to the highest quality methods of data collection. Participating
students and volunteers learn how to do science through hands-on research.
The large number of study sites that they will be able to maintain will enable
us to collect data and test hypotheses at a scale unattainable without them.
At a local scale, they will learn how to design experiments, collect and manage
quality data, analyze it and write up the results.
Components of Bee Hunt!
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Bee Hunt! wishes to address a set of global hypotheses concerned with pollination, such as:
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Are pollinator services declining?
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Is climate change creating a temporal mismatch between bloom times and pollinator visits?
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Bee Hunt! will build a network of research sites across North America that will collect data on plants,
pollinators, and their interactions. These study sites will include schools, parks,
nature centers, farms, gardens, and other areas of biological interest.
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Participants will follow rigorous protocols that will ensure that they collect,
manage, and share very high-quality data.
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Educationally, Bee Hunt! will enable teachers to meet state science standards by doing hands on science.
For example, we envision them using the protocols to design and conduct meaningful local experiments
to study plant / pollinator interactions and test hypotheses.
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Discover Life will provide data management, analysis, and mapping tools that will enable
participants to compare data within and across sites.