Hi all,

Apologies for the rapid succession posts. In addition to whatever specific questions regarding your BioBlitz question that Dr. Greer posed to you, everyone should think about the following as a way to help you decide whether your question is one that you’d like to pursue:

  • How would you test your question? What kind of experiment would you design to test your question?
  • Has this information already been studied?
    • Has this information been studied, but not in this particular location? For example: we know that generally x is true, but is x true in this case in this park?
  • Can you answer this question without designing an experiment?
    • If the answer is yes, how could you change your question to make it something that has to be tested?
  • What further data and/or resources would you need to answer this question?
  • Is it realistic for you to complete this project in this semester with the resources that you have?

A reminder that you already have access to the data from past BioBlitzes in other parks (https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/bioblitz/category/data/) as well as other data sets which are listed here: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/scienceforward/course-materials/digital-resources/. Additionally, NYC makes all its data available: nyc.gov/data.

Lastly, take a look at the sidebar on our website’s main page to get a sense for our upcoming schedule in October and when assignments are due.

OK, that’s it for today I promise!

-Jake