When Sarah first participated in Frog Watch, USA she had no idea the impact it would have on her life. Now, with several Citizen Science projects experience under her belt, she has gotten her master’s degree in biology and has discovered more and more ways to connect with wildlife in her city.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Citizen Science is for everybody.
You can have no experience and they train you in everything you need, whatever project it is they'll give you all the resources you need and it's a lot of fun.
(soft music) I'm Sarah Edmunds and I am a senior exhibit developer at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
So I first heard about Citizen Science, maybe in 2013.
When I was working at the Bronx Zoo.
They announced this new partnership with Citizen Science project called FrogWatch USA, which is, I didn't know anything about it.
But when they sent out the email they basically said, you're gonna learn how to identify by audio, by listening all 12 species of frogs and toads that live in New York, New York State and specifically in the New York City region.
And I thought that was so cool, like I wanted, like know what the frog sound like.
So I signed up for that and I got involved.
That was my first project.
When this FrogWatch experience came about, I was like, Oh, you can actually, like anybody can do this work, you don't have to like have a bachelor's degree or master's degree or have studied science your whole life.
You can just go out there and listen to frogs, or like count turtles or do any sort of number on things.
Getting involved in Citizen Science has helped me reconnect with this part of myself from, like my youth, my childhood of being around nature.
Thanks to my experience with Citizen Science.
It actually inspired me to take my interest in science a step further and pursue a master's degree in biology.
So I did that, in two and a half years later I got my master's degree.
Hi, I'm Sarah Edmunds and empowerment is why I'm a citizen scientist.