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What on Earth is in your garden?
Ever found something unusual crawling around in your garden? Discovered a strange looking plant in the hedgerow on your way to work? Nature-spotting project, What on Earth (www.whatonearth.org.uk) has been launched for National Science and Engineering Week (NSEW) in conjunction with iSpot.org.uk, to give you the opportunity to get species you find and don’t recognise identified by a team of scientific experts. Simply upload a snap of something you spot in your garden, local park, school ground or hedgerow to the site and NSEW’s specialists from all fields of natural science might examine, identify and catalogue your find.
The aim is to collect and identify as many species as possible over the course of the week - painting a fascinating picture of UK wildlife for us all to observe.
To incentivise people to get involved NSEW is offering a fantastic prize of a 200 square metre green roof – to the area of the UK which has collectively uploaded the most images by the end of the week averaged out over the number of people living there to make it fair. Created in conjunction with leading urban ecologist and wildlife TV presenter Dusty Gedge and sponsors Sika Sarnafil, the green roof will not only benefit local children who will use it as an outdoor classroom, it will help attract and preserve local wildlife too. This is particularly important at a time when the habitats of some of our oldest and most loved species, such as the stag beetle and corncrake are in decline. In addition, everyone who sends in a photo will be sent a free packet of biodiversity-encouraging seeds to plant in their gardens, and an information and education pack.
This is a great opportunity for specialists and the public to join together to raise awareness of the UK’s wealth of biodiversity, so log-in and help identify anything you recognise or check out what’s in your garden… you never know what you might find!
http://www.whatonearth.org.uk
Posted: 10th February 2010
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