Harvard Forest >

Summer Research Project 2019

• Title: The witness tree: telling real-time environmental stories through one wired oak
• Group Project Leader: Tim Rademacher
• Mentors: Clarisse Hart; Tim Rademacher
• Collaborators: Aaron Ellison
• Project Description:

  Trees cover most of New England. Forests not only surround human society in the Northeastern US, but continue to shape our culture and sustain our lives. Despite their importance and a great deal of active research on trees, few people know what makes trees tick. Beyond obvious changes such as the appearance of leaves in spring and leaf color changes in autumn, trees and their function have largely remained a mystery to the general public… until now.
  
  Our witness tree, a red oak (Quercus rubra) first introduced to the public in an acclaimed book by journalist Lynda Mapes, experiences and bears witness to its environment, climate, and life experiences through sensors on and around its trunk. In addition to serving as a living archive for scientists, the tree reports data from its sensors as narrative experiences in near-real time by posting messages to social media platforms. As it translates data collected from various sensors to simple posts about climate and the changing environment, the witness tree becomes an outreach tool that will hopefully illuminate a tree’s rich inner workings and encourage people to consider what change means to all of us.
  
  By the summer of 2019, the original Harvard Forest witness tree multimedia project will have been launched, with the red oak posting regularly to Twitter. The summer student will be responsible for expanding its operation and functionality to deepen the impact of messages and reach new audiences. This could involve (1) expanding the code base to interface with other social media platforms (such as Facebook or Instagram), (2) creating data visualizations to accompany messages, (3) learning and potentially modifying sensor technology, (4) identifying new ways to generate engaging, automated content (e.g. linking to nearby wildlife cameras), and (5) writing documentation. The student would work closely with Clarisse Hart on outreach-related tasks and Tim Rademacher on programming and integrating novel methods related to the sensors.
  
  We are looking for students with a keen interest in design, data visualization, and environmental education or science communication. At least intermediate-level programming skills (i.e. able to write functions) in R are required and will be further developed throughout the summer. Additional shell scripting and programming skills would be desirable, but are not required. Development of science communications skills will be a primary goal, with one day per week devoted to messaging and marketing, multimedia skill development, and comparative analysis of related initiatives. Although most of the work will be indoors, enthusiasm about spending some of your time outside installing and maintaining sensors in the forest is essential. This may involve bugs, poison ivy, ticks, and the typical extremes of New England summer weather. A background in multimedia communication, computer science, plant biology or engineering would be useful, but is not required.

• Readings:

  Pearson, E., Tindle, H., Ferguson, M., Ryan, J. and Litchfield, C., 2016. Can we tweet, post, and share our way to a more sustainable society? A review of the current contributions and future potential of# socialmediaforsustainability. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 41.

• Research Category: Historical and Retrospective Studies, Ecological Informatics and Modelling