If you’re looking for a way that you can easily and satisfyingly contribute to scientific research without even having to spend a lot of time on it, then here’s a suggestion: count frog croaks.
We found an awesome article over on the Discover Magazine site that details the work that FrogWatch USA is doing to essentially crowdsource the measurement of frog species:
At dusk, Carolyn Rinaldi and her 14-year-old daughter sit silently on the shores of the lake at Wadsworth Falls State Park in Middletown, Conn. Then their ears go into overdrive. For three minutes they count the different grunts, gribbets, croaks and peeps emanating from frogs and toads resident in the wetlands.
They are just two of the volunteers that took part in FrogWatch USA during 2014, a citizen science program of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The name is somewhat of a misnomer. The program could be called FrogListen. Volunteers identify frogs by listening to their mating calls and indicating whether each was heard individually, in a group or in a full chorus.
Pretty cool that you can spend just three minutes to make a contribution to zoological science!
But why is researching the croaks of frogs important? See the next page for that answer…
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