Hello Girl Scouts and troop leaders! We
at GLOBE are very excited that you have
chosen to use the GLOBE Observer app to
work on your Think Like a Citizen
Scientist Journey.
This video can be used as a plug and
play with pauses for activities, so pay
attention
and pause the video while you work.
Alternatively, troop leaders, service unit,
or council volunteers can use this video
as an example of how you might run your
own program.
However you choose to use this video,
enjoy your journey as you learn to think
like a citizen scientist.
Welcome to the first step in being a
critical part of a growing citizen
science project. Today you will learn
what it means to think like a citizen
scientist, learn about the Mosquito
Habitat Mapper, tool on the GLOBE
Observer app, and make your own mosquito
trap to catch and observe mosquito larvae.
Your observations play an important role
in identifying mosquitoes that carry
disease, which could help prevent
mosquito-borne illnesses.
So let me tell you a little bit about
what GLOBE and GLOBE Observer are.
GLOBE is an international science and
education program that provides students
and the public worldwide with the
opportunity to participate in data
collection and the scientific process
and contribute meaningfully to our
understanding of the Earth system and
global environment.
The GLOBE Observer app is the data entry
tool that allows citizen scientists like
you to enter their data and share
observations. GLOBE Observer is part of
GLOBE.
Let's get started on our Think Like a
Citizen Scientist Journey by practicing
our observation skills. When we observe,
we use our senses of taste, smell, touch,
hearing, and sight
to observe the world around us. Since we
can't really taste, smell, hear, or touch
these pictures we are going to use our
sense of sight.
We are going to be observing places
where mosquitoes might breed, where
mosquito larvae hatch and grow into
adult mosquitoes,
so we need a little prior knowledge.
Let's learn a little bit about
mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes need water to breed, so
anything that holds water like this
inflatable pool with bits of water
balloon would be a great mosquito
habitat, Fun fact: the mosquitoes that
bite are female mosquitoes. Females need
the proteins and blood from animals or
humans
to develop eggs. The female mosquitoes
lay their eggs above the water line on
the inner wet walls of water-filled
containers.
Let's use our prior knowledge about
mosquitoes and these pictures to
identify places where mosquitoes might
be breeding.
Let's go on a mosquito habitat hunt and
observe some potential mosquito habitats.
Some observations might be about where
there could be standing water in any of
the objects in the pictures.
Other observations could be about the
seasons or conditions under which these
pictures were taken.
Is there snow on the ground? Is the Sun
shining? Is the water standing still or
is it flowing?
What condition is the water in - is it
clean, dirty, fresh or old?
Are the water sources in the images
artificial or naturally occurring?
Grab a sheet of paper, a science journal,
or discuss with your troop any
observations of the places in the
photographs.
Ff you are watching this video with your
troop, briefly pause the video give the
scouts a few moments to write down some
observations and then discuss what was
observed with your troop.
Once you've shared your observations
with each other, resume the video.
Great observing, Girl Scouts! There were
lots of potential mosquito habitats in
those photos! The water play table was
full of old filthy water, but this photo
was taken when it was winter so there
weren't any mosquito larvae in the water,
it was just too cold,
but you probably couldn't observe that
from the photo.
In the photo of the backyard toys taken
in the summer,
mosquito larva were found in almost any
standing water, like in the buckets or in
the back of the toy dump truck.
The photo of the Girl Scouts with
umbrellas was taken at a Girl Scout
property in the spring and the giant
puddle was full of little larvae like
these ...
wiggling around.
Next you will practice your observation
skills by checking off mosquito habitats
on the mosquito habitat bingo card.
You can download these cards at
observer.globe.gov,
hover over "Do GLOBE Observer," then
"Mosquito Habitats," and finally select
"Resource Library."
Here you can find lots of different
activities, including the Conducting a
Mosquito Habitat Survey
and
the bingo boards from the Mosquito
Habitats and Hideouts activity.
The bingo cards can be used like a
scavenger hunt sheet to observe mosquito
habitats around you while on a hike,
while meeting outside, while camping, or
even as a scavenger hunt to look for
mosquito habitats in your own yard or
nearby park.
Alternatively if you are unable to look
for mosquito habitats where you are
located, you can watch this next video
where Tassia Owen takes you on a virtual
hike through the Marquam Trail in
southwest Portland, Oregon.
If you plan to take your troop out to do
this activity skip ahead past the
virtual hike.
On a side note, more advanced troops can
use the Mosquito Habitat Survey to
collect data about mosquito larvae in
addition to the bingo card.
Hi Girl Scouts! So we are going to go on
a walk today through the Marquam Trail
in the southwest Portland hills. So let's
see what kind of mosquito habitats we
can identify while we're walking down
this trail.
We can start here,
and off
we go!
[Music]
so
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
And there you have it,
a wonderful hike through the Marquam
Trail in southwest Portland where we
identified a lot of different types of
mosquito habitats. How many of them
did you spot on your walk?
Hi!
Congrats, you're taking the first step to
become scientists! Okay, now let's talk
about scientists. What do scientists
do?
Pause the video and discuss what you
think a scientist does.
I bet you had a great discussion on what
it means to be a scientist. There are
lots of different types of scientists
out there, but one thing they all have in
common in their research is that
scientists rely on the scientific method
to learn new things.
You are going to be citizen scientists
where you use the scientific method to
help gather data for NASA scientists and
other researchers, including students or
scouts just like you.
The first part of the scientific method
is to observe.
You all did a great job of observing the
mosquito habitat hunt pictures and using
the bingo cards or habitat survey sheets
to record your observations.
The next part of the scientific method
is to create a question and make a
hypothesis.
That's just your best guess at the
answer to your question based on your
observations.
Okay, now that we've observed a few
different mosquito habitats, either in
person or by watching the video,
let's form a question based on our
observations.
What could be a good question?
Pause this video and discuss with your
troop.
I bet you came up with some great
questions.
Now I'm going to give you a question
that we can discuss.
Our question could be:
Are there more artificial containers or
natural water sources where I live?
This is a question that you can answer
by collecting data or
inventorying,
basically counting, the types of
potential mosquito habitats in your area.
So what do you think, are there more
artificial containers near you or more
natural water sources that could be
potential mosquito habitats?
Make a hypothesis! The hypothesis is your
answer to that question.
We have a few options: I think there are
more artificial containers [or] I think there
are more natural water sources for
mosquitoes to breed in.
Which one do you think?
At this point you can pause the video
and take an inventory of the number of
artificial or natural potential mosquito
habitats in your area,
which could be your yard, your school
yard, local park, or another area that
your troop defines,
or you can continue watching the video
and do this activity later.
I observed my yard and decided that I
have more artificial containers in my
backyard than natural containers. There's
a sandbox, sand toys, inflatable pool,
wagon, dog bowl, tire swing. There's a lot
of containers back there!
So I chose there are more artificial
containers near me as my hypothesis.
Your observations may have led you to
choose there are more natural water
sources near me,
but that would depend on what is in your
surroundings.
So how do scientists know if their
hypothesis is correct?
They have to collect and analyze data!
The more data they have, the better their
results will be because it helps filter
out some of those outliers, the mistakes,
errors, or oddball data. Kind of like if I
was measuring favorite Girl Scout
cookies,
the more people I sell cookies to, the
better my
data. For example, here is a pie chart
showing some real data for my troop's
sales.
This Girl Scout made a single sale to
one family
who loves samoas,
but are samoa the most popular cookie
sold by Girl Scouts nationwide?
With this data, my hypothesis should be
yes, but is it? How could I get a better
data set?
I could collect
more data.
The pie chart on the right is the data
for my entire troop's sales.
This is a much better data set because
it has
1559 packages of cookies sold,
1554 more boxes than my single sale.
With this much data I could look at
which ones I sold the most of and be
able to make a better conclusion to my
hypothesis than if I'd only sold one or
two boxes.
The more data that is collected the
better.
So are samoas the most popular according
to this data?
No,
thin mints are.
Your troop can do the same exercise with
your troop sales. If you added your data
to this data we'd have even better data.
And if we were to take all cookie sales
sold nationwide and measure them, we
could come up with an actual conclusion
to say
which cookie is the most popular across
the nation.
Like the Girl Scout cookie example, my
yard is not a large data set. It is a
snapshot of one location in Portland,
Oregon, so it's definitely not large
enough to make a conclusion about a
large area like Oregon and southwest
Washington.
There are a lot of yards in this Girl
Scout region, and even more yards and
open spaces across the United States,
so we need a lot of data to make
stronger scientific discoveries.
GLOBE's network of citizen scientists
collect a lot of data. You can see the
data on the GLOBE Visualization System.
Each dot on the map is a mosquito
observation taken by a citizen scientist
or school.
But we still need more data. We need you
citizen scientists.
Girl Scouts are a valuable source of
this information. We need you to think
like a citizen scientist and join GLOBE
Observer.
Dr. Rusty Low, GLOBE Observer's Mosquito
Habitat Mapper science lead and lifelong
Girl Scout, will share with you how Girl
Scouts like you can help us collect more
data on mosquito habitats and help keep
people safe from mosquito-borne illness.
Hi, I'm Dr. Rusty Low and I'm a climate
scientist as well as a lifetime Girl
Scout. I work with NASA's GLOBE Observer
team and I'm also the lead scientist for
the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat
Mapper.
Did you know that mosquitoes are the
most dangerous animals in the world? They
kill more than a million people every
year.
But mosquitoes are everywhere, so how can
we control these populations and make
people safe from disease? Well, our answer
is the Mosquito Habitat Mapper.
It's a mobile app that you can download
on your smartphone or your tablet. It
asks participants to report the breeding
sites that they see in their community.
You can also use the app to determine if
the mosquito larvae that you find are one
of four kinds of mosquitoes that can
potentially transmit disease to humans.
Diseases like West Nile virus
or dengue or zika.
After you make your own observations, you
can also access the data that you've
collected and also the data collected by
others.
You can do your own analysis
as well. NASA scientists and local public
health officials will also use your data
in their work to reduce the risk of
disease in your community and around the
world.
If you find mosquito larvae in
manufactured containers,
like the mosquitoes here I found in a
jar in my house where there were flowers.
These are usually invasive species that
don't have a native ecological role in
your ecosystem. Using the app you can
record every time you identify and
decommission a container site.
The more sites you decommission, the fewer
breeding sites in your community and
this will contribute to the success
of the public health department's task
reducing the risk of disease.
Also we know that invasive
species are on the move.
Changing climate conditions have allowed
the northward migration of species that we
only saw previously in tropical areas. So
when you identify an invasive mosquito
larva, this is important
information for scientists who create
those computer models that are used to
predict the location and timing of
disease outbreaks. There's lots more
about this project you'll want to know
about, so download the GLOBE Observer app
from your app or play store.
Thanks!
Now that you know why mosquito
observations are important. Kristen
Weaver from the GLOBE Observer
Communications team is going to show you
how to take a mosquito observation.
Have you heard about the new Mosquito
Habitat Mapper from GLOBE Observer? We
want your data about mosquito habitats
on the ground. Of course you can't see
mosquitoes from space, but you can see
the factors that affect where mosquito
habitats might form. Precipitation,
temperature, soil moisture - all of these
things can be tracked from space and
used to model where mosquito habitats
might be found. But we need your help to
figure out where they actually appear.
The first step is to look around for
mosquito habitats. We're looking for
water. This could be a natural source
like a pond or a puddle, or even water in
tire tracks. Or it could be trash left on
the ground by human beings. Anything that
collects water, as small as a bottle cap,
is a potential mosquito habitat.
So how do you identify a mosquito
habitat? First of all download, the GLOBE
Observer app on your phone that will
walk you through the steps to identify
mosquito habitats. First it'll ask you
what type of habitat you're observing,
whether it's a tire, a piece of garbage, a
pond. Then you can take a picture so that
we know exactly what type of habitat
you're looking at. After you've
identified the mosquito habitat, the next
step is to look to see if you actually
see mosquito larvae. We're having you
look for larvae which do not transmit
disease, but you may want to wear long
sleeves or use bug repellent to make
sure you're safe from any adult
mosquitoes that might be around. All you
need to collect a water sample is a cup
or a syringe or some other way to scoop
out the water.
Then you can look and see if you see any
mosquito larvae and count them.
The third step, if you want to, is to take
an attachment for your cell phone that's
a microscope, and we have a key in the
app that will walk you through
identifying certain types of mosquitoes
that can be disease-carrying. This is not
required because it does require some
extra equipment, but if you're interested
we'd love to have the data about what
types of mosquitoes you've seen.
And finally, what we want you to do is
eliminate the breeding habitat. If you
can, dump out the cup of water that had
larvae in it or cover it with a lid
or cover on the container, anything you
can do to prevent mosquitoes from
breeding at that particular site.
So please if you can help us to track
where mosquito habitats are in your area,
so that we can match it up to NASA
satellite data.
Now you know how to use the app and to take
observations and collect data.
Dr. Low is going to show us how you can
make a mosquito trap to collect larvae
that you can safely observe. It's really
easy if you have the materials on hand.
You can create your trap too, just pause
the video while you collect your
materials. Then as you watch her
demonstrate, pause the video as needed
while you build your own mosquito trap.
Here's a list of the materials that
you'll need.
If you have them now you can build with
us, if not
you can easily make your own later. The
link to the printable activity can be
found in the resources section we
visited earlier in the video.
So grab a clear plastic bottle, some
netting,
rubber bands, tape,
scissors or a craft knife,
dark paper or fabric, and a little bit of
water.
This is one method for catching larvae so
you can count them and identify mosquito
species in your region.
Have you ever wondered if those
mosquitoes that are biting you in your
backyard are potential vectors of
disease?
Well today we're going to show you a DIY
way that you can find out.
My name is Rusty Low. I work with the
Institute for Global Environmental
Strategies in Arlington, Virginia,
and I'm also a scientist with the GLOBE
Observer team. So today we're going to do
our DIY mosquito trap.
U'm going to show you first
the things we need to build it and then
we're going to build it. So first you
need a two liter soda bottle. The hardest
part of this project is to drink the two
liters of soda.
Okay,
the next thing we need is a pair of
scissors
to cut the bottle. You're going to need a
piece of sandpaper to rough up part of
the bottle.
You're going to need a rubber band
that's going to hold the netting in
place.
You're going to need some netting,
and what i'm using here is an old
scrubby from the kitchen.
It provides perfectly good netting.
You could also if you want, you could use
the bag that potatoes or onions come in,
or even some fabric from the fabric
store, but not necessary. This works great.
You also will want maybe some rocks from
your yard,
about a cup and a half of water,
maybe some tape to hold it together,
and if you're really fancy
an old stretchy sock dark sock but we'll
get to that later,
So let's start.
You start with the bottle. You cut it in
half.
Since I can only do this in one take, I
cut it for you because I tried to do it
before and it made a huge mess.
So,
what you just need to do though is you
just need to cut it in half
and you have the two pieces.
Now what we're trying to do when we
build this trap is we are actually
trying to psych out those mama
mosquitoes. We want them to think that
they have just found
the
perfect
nursery for their babies.
In order to do that we just have to have
a little bit of understanding about
mosquito ecology, right?
Well, the cool thing about
this trap is that it is a trap that is
attracting, we're making it attractive
for container-breeding mosquitoes. Now
two of the most dangerous mosquitoes
that are invasive that have come into
the U.S. recently
are Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti. These
are called the yellow
fever mosquito and the Asian
tiger mosquito. Both these mosquitoes are
container-breeding mosquitoes and they
also have a unique feature that other
mosquitoes like the common house
mosquito
doesn't have, which is they don't put
their eggs right on top of the water.
What they do is they lay their eggs
right next to the water and this is a
cool adaptation because it allows the
mom mosquito to like to lay their eggs
at any time even during a drought, but
then when it rains the water in the
container where she's chosen to be
the nursery will rise, it will wet the
eggs that she's laid on the surface, they
will fall into the water and then she is
gambling that there will be water for
five to seven days for those mosquito
eggs to mature into adults.
So we're going to try and create that
with this trap. So without
further ado, the first thing we need to
do is we need to take the top, the bottle
side of the trap, and we need to rough it
up right around the edge, right near the
hole in the bottom. This is so
the eggs when she makes them they will
stick on the side.
She's looking for
that she doesn't want them to slide in
the water right away,
so you just rough it up real good.
It doesn't take very long. You can see
that now it's a little bit opaque there
where I have roughed it up.
Now comes the trap part. Okay, so we need
to find
our source of netting. Here it is right
here.
I'm just going to cut off a piece
that I can use
like this,
and then that piece of netting is going
to go right over the mouth of the bottle.
This is the the real trap part of
the mosquito trap, so by putting the
the netting right over the mouth of the
bottle, the jar here,
what's going to happen is
the eggs can go into the into the water,
but the adult mosquitoes
can't get out because the netting is
keeping them from doing so.
Okay,
we're almost done.
So now we need to provide the the next
thing that a mosquito mom is looking for,
which is a
watery habitat which is
nutritious.
Mosquito mom has sensors it lets her
know there's water, it lets her know there's
certain kinds of chemicals in the water.
Different mosquitoes like different
things.
I've been very successful using plain
tap water.
You can also use a little bit of fish
food, if you've got an aquarium, in there.
You can take a little bit of grass, you
could take some pond water or stream
water
from a local source, put it in there. But
basically what you want to do now is to
put maybe a cup or a cup and a half of
water in there, and if you want to put a
little bit of a bait in there you can.
This is a trick that we learned from
one of the
libraries that are doing this with us in
California, and they had problems with
the
with the trap blowing over, and so they
suggested putting some rocks in well.
Why didn't i think of that? I'm a
geologist, right! Well, okay,
rocks.
Tt's a great,
great solution. Okay,
so put the rocks in there. We have our
water here, this is clear tap water, but
like I said it could be any, you can
make it more nutritious if you want.
And I'm going to put in just about a cup
and a half, it doesn't really matter how
much it is, and it doesn't really matter
where it goes as long as the netting is
above the water. You want to have it
pretty close to the top of the water but
it doesn't have to be if you don't want
it exactly touching. So I'm going to show
you something like this, you can see it's
just right above.
Great, okay.
So what this means is,
let's say you have your trap and you're
all excited you want to determine
whether or not those bad mosquitoes, the
Aedes albopictus and aegypti are in
your backyard, but then you get invited
to go to the beach for three days and
you forget about it. Well,
it would not be good to have a mosquito
trap that actually creates more
vectors of disease, right? We don't have
to worry about this, because what happens
is here
is that once the mosquito eggs fall in
the water,
and they mature into larvae,
we want those larvae because we can
identify them using the GLOBE Observer
app, then they'll develop into pupae
and then if we don't do anything with
them they'll develop into adults. But see
what happens, they have a place to swim
around, they're not swimming anymore
the place to fly around here, right, but
they can't get out. And even if they find
the opening, which they probably will not
do, they're going to try and fly up but
even if they find the opening they can't
get through because there's netting
there.
So that is the trap part of this.
so we have now created what we think is
going to be a really attractive nursery
for our mosquito moms. They're going to
see that there's water there, there's a
nice rough surface for her eggs.
The last thing that we know from
research that's been done is that the
mosquito moms are looking for a safe
place, a dark place. You're going to want
to put, you're going to want to put
your trap in the shade because if it
gets too hot the mosquito larvae will
cook, you don't want to do that. You don't
want to kill them like that, so put it in
the shade, but also the
mosquito moms have optical sensors,
and they are light sensors, and they're
looking also for a nice safe dark place.
So you can achieve that
by just finding an old black sock, you
could also use paint, you could use a
piece of black paper that you tape, you
could take some duct tape and tape
around it and make it dark on the inside,
but basically what you can do is just
stretch that sock
over your trap.
Now this is a design, I'm afraid I'm
going to spill the water on TV, that's
gonna not be very good, right.
No, I was successful, okay. So now you have
I would say
a very clever
trick to get those mom mosquitoes, the
mom container mosquitoes to lay their
eggs in your trap. So what I'm hoping
you'll do is you will look for those
larvae they swim they they kind of
swim they're called wigglers because
they swim in a wiggling fashion. They're
long and thin, you'll recognize them as
soon as you see them.
Grab a few of those out of there, take a
look at them, take a photograph,
send the data to us on the GLOBE
Observer app,
right,
and then let us know what you find.
There's a taxonomic key built
right into the app, so you yourself can
actually determine what kind of mosquito
larvae that you have. So thanks for
building a trap with me and I look
forward to seeing your observations
uploaded on GLOBE Observer. Thanks a lot!
This is my mosquito trap with the pond
water in it and the others I put normal
water, grass water,
sugar water,
and tap water, I have my controls.
What I'm doing is I'm going to create
five different
traps and I'm going to put them in five
different locations.
One of them at my house, one of them at
my grandparents house
and
the other ones at other grandparents
houses as well, and possibly a friend's
house. This is my trap right here
I'm just using a regular clear water
and putting them in five different
locations,
one at my house, one beside a
creek,
one beside a park where there's no
traffic, and two near a mountainside.
Basically the cup and container and
inside is that cardboard coffee thing
like the coffee slip.
We put the net on top because we have a
lot of lizards in our backyard and we
don't want any lizards getting in and
messing with the mosquitoes.
This is my trap. It's currently covered
but
if I
take off the piece of brown construction
paper it's just the two-liter bottle
trap.
And this is the one I made with tap
water
and then I'm doing one with pond water
from an irrigation pond, lake water
river water, and water from a fountain.
If you want to get started as a GLOBE
Observer, ask your troop leader to
register your troop through SciStarter,
then send you the link to set up your
accounts.
Once you have a troop SciStarter
account, you will choose which citizen
science opportunity interests you.
Here is where you will choose GLOBE
Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper.
There are a lot of different citizen
science projects, including others with
NASA and others with GLOBE Observer:
Trees, Land Cover and Clouds that you can
also participate in. Then you need to
download the app,
register as a GLOBE Observer, then
collect your data.
So now you've learned to think like a
citizen scientist by observing,
collecting, and analyzing, data. The next
step is to collect and analyze your own
data by using the app,
then consider how you might use your
data to take action. What kind of Take
Action projects can you think of doing?
You could find a mosquito habitat and
dump the standing water if you're able
to. This would eliminate a potential
breeding site for mosquitoes carrying
disease. You can create a program to
teach other Girl Scouts about mosquitoes.
You can start a hiking group and take
mosquito habitat observations as part of
your walk.
You could take mosquito habitat and land
cover observations from the same
place in different seasons, then you can
compare the changes from year to year
and look for differences between the
images to learn more about seasonal
effects on the mosquito habitats and
mosquito populations.
You can participate in any of the data
challenges when they occur from GLOBE
Observer. And you can use
the
survey that we showed you earlier to
survey any mosquito habitats near you.
What I love about Girl Scouts is that
you all leave the world a better place. I
for one am really excited that you are
leading the future for us.
We would also love for you to share your
Take Action projects inspired by
GLOBE Observer. Please share with us on
social media or email us at
GLOBE Observer.
Thanks for joining today, and here is a
list of some of the links that were in
the presentation that you may find
useful.
Thanks a lot for thinking like a citizen
scientist!