Milkweed for Monarchs Rock Art Stars Critters in the Creek A Disgusting Discovery Citizen Science Adventures Citizen Scientists at Work! Public Lands What’s Inside 2 BLM manages You Can Be a Citizen Scientist 245 MILLION 4 ACRES Monitoring Monarchs 5 Recording Ancient Rock Art 6 Find Your Citizen More than Science Adventure 99% 8 Life in the Stream of BLM-managed lands are open for 10 recreation Invasive Species Discovered 11 BLM Junior Ranger Become a BLM Junior Ranger! Certificate The Junior Ranger program Inside Back introduces young adventurers like Cover you to the lands and resources of the Bureau of Land Management. Make a Stream Scope We invite you to join the adventure! Learn more at blm.gov/education. Belong to You! More 62 MILLION than VISITS each year to BLM- 1 managed lands Find Junior Ranger activities at over 50 LOCATIONS The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a federal government agency that cares for public lands. These lands are managed for many different uses and belong to all Americans. BLM lands provide energy resources, such as coal, oil, and natural gas. They provide habitat for wildlife, food for grazing animals, and timber for people. The lands contain evidence of the past, such as dinosaur bones and plant fossils. Archaeological sites on public lands help us learn about people who lived here long ago. Each year millions of people explore the big open spaces on these lands. Energy Forestry Wild Horses & Burros Grazing Education Conservation Fire Recreation Cultural Resources You Can Be a Citizen Scientist Are you curious about nature? Do you enjoy outdoor adventures? You can do citizen science while exploring the great outdoors! Citizen scientists are people who volunteer to collect information, or data, for scientific research. Citizen scientists do not need a 2 Citizen science: college degree, and they don’t have to be adults. What they do scientific research that need is a sense of curiosity about the natural world, and a little happens when ordinary time to spend observing it. people observe the world around them and share Kids are natural citizen scientists. Like scientists, they are that information with curious and ask a lot of questions. They notice things and scientists and land enjoy investigating and exploring nature. Kids just like you can managers. make real contributions as citizen scientists. In fact, many already are. Millions of people around the world are doing citizen science. They are gathering more information, from more places, than scientists could ever do without their help. Thanks to citizen scientists, our understanding of the natural world is growing and growing. Citizen Science on Public Lands Out on public lands, people are collecting data while hiking, biking, fishing, and just having fun. They explore wildernesses, historic trails, wild and scenic rivers, national monuments, and other amazing places, and share their observations with land managers. Their work helps the BLM protect and preserve America’s public lands for all of us to enjoy! Are you interested in becoming a citizen scientist? Fill out the application to see if you qualify. 3 Citizen Scientist Application Congratulations! Name: You have what it takes to be a Age: citizen scientist! Check all that apply: There are many ways for you to get I am a person. involved in citizen science. You can observe nature in your neighborhood, or I have a brain. sign up for a citizen science event. You I am curious. can visit public lands with your family I notice things in nature. and collect data for land managers. I can share what I learn. Read on to learn about some exciting I want to help scientists and public opportunities for citizen scientists like you. land managers. Citizen Scientist ID Card I am interested in (circle): Fish Plants Wildlife Just for fun, make your personal Birds Archaeology Insects citizen scientist identification card. Feel free to add a photo or drawing of yourself. Other: Citizen Scientist ID Card Name: Areas of Interest: Monitoring Monarchs Every fall, monarch butterflies migrate hundreds, even thousands, of miles to southern California and central Mexico. Along the way, they stop to drink nectar from wildflowers and other flowering plants. Reaching their winter homes, they gather in the trees and form large clusters, or roosts, to stay warm. They remain in their roosts until spring, when warmer weather signals that it’s time to breed. Soon, a new generation of monarchs will make the long trip back to their summer habitats. 4 For female monarchs to reproduce successfully, they must lay their eggs on milkweed. The caterpillars that hatch will be hungry, and milkweed is the only plant they will eat. Without milkweed, monarchs cannot survive. But milkweed and sources of nectar have become scarce, and monarch populations are declining. To increase monarch habitat, BLM scientists collect native milkweed seeds and use them to grow more milkweed. Seeds harvested from the new plants are shared with citizen scientists to plant in gardens, schoolyards, and parks. In addition, the BLM belongs to the Monarch Joint Venture, a partnership dedicated to monarch conservation. Citizen scientists can help by planting milkweed and other wildflowers, and by observing monarch life cycles. Learn how to help bring back the butterflies at monarchjointventure.org. Find 5 monarch butterflies and 9 monarch caterpillars in the milkweed patch. Color the sketch if you wish. Recording Ancient Rock Art Long ago, people painted, chipped, and chiseled pictures on rock walls and boulders. Many ancient rock paintings (pictographs) and carvings (petroglyphs) 5 are located on public lands. These rock art sites are evidence of the past and are considered cultural treasures. For Native Americans, rock art can have both historical and sacred value. In New Mexico a group of citizen scientists, known as the Rock Art Team, is on a mission to create a permanent record of the ancient designs. They take photos, make measurements, and write down the locations of rock art sites. To avoid damaging the art, they carefully follow historic preservation guidelines. Look at the pictures Their work helps the BLM protect and preserve above. Which rock art these cultural treasures. These citizen scientists designs are painted and really are rock art stars! which are carved? Write The BLM is required by law to protect cultural “1” for pictograph and resources on public lands. Learn more at “2” for petroglyph. blm.gov/programs/cultural-resources. (Answers on page 12) Little Black Canyon Petroglyph Site, Arizona Find Your Citizen In your neighborhood, or on public lands, Party with the stars! Explore wild places! On the Grand Canyon’s northern rim is a wild, rugged With dramatic desert views, tall cliffs, and narrow area of more than a million acres. By day, Grand slot canyons, Crack Canyon is a fun place for family Canyon-Parashant National Monument is a great place adventure. There are hiking trails for all skill levels and for exploring canyons, plateaus, and mountains. After rock art sites hidden in some of the canyons. the sun sets, it’s one of the best places on Earth for exploring the night sky. Sparkling with the light of Crack Canyon is one of hundreds of Wilderness Study countless stars, our home galaxy looks like a milky river. Areas, or WSAs, managed by the BLM. Managing WSAs is a huge job for the BLM, but specially trained Most people live in places where they can’t see the citizen scientists are making it easier. Using an app Milky Way. Because of light pollution, only the moon called WildSNAP, they report on important wildlife and the brightest planets and stars are visible. The habitat and historic sites. They take photos of native Globe at Night website provides tools for measuring plants and damage to trails. These adventurous star brightness. Using the online app, citizen scientists volunteers are helping the BLM keep the “wild” in have already shared more than 100,000 measurements. “wilderness.” Learn more at wildsnap.org. Scientists use this data to learn how light pollution F affects birds, bugs, and other wildlife. Be part of this project by visiting globeatnight.org. Under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the BLM protects more than 200 federally designated wilderness areas. These wild, unspoiled places are habitat for wildlife and sources of clean water and clean air. Science Adventure have fun doing citizen science with your family. Find feathered friends! Connect with nature! The place to see eagles, falcons, owls, and other California’s King Range National Conservation Area is raptors is Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey a favorite destination for families. Watch for signs of National Conservation Area in Idaho. Every year, spring along the Bear Creek Nature Trail. Share your hundreds of pairs of these meat-eating birds nest on observations with the BLM to help the agency monitor the canyon walls of the Snake River. Another great seasonal changes. In autumn, head to the Bizz Johnson destination for birdwatching is Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse National Recreation Trail to enjoy the fall colors while Outstanding Natural Area in Florida. As you hike the hiking, biking, or horseback riding. Wander back in trails or paddle the lagoon, watch for pelicans, egrets, the winter with skis or snowshoes to look for animal ibis, and other water birds. footprints in the snow. Celebrate Urban Birds (CUBS) seeks kid citizen Nature’s Notebook needs citizen scientists to observe scientists, like you, to study birds that live in cities how living things adapt to the seasons. Visit the and towns. Your observations will help scientists website to select a plant or an animal to observe. The understand how birds use city parks and other green data you share will help scientists and land managers spaces. If you see a nest in a weird place, enter and could lead to scientific discovery! Learn more at a photo in the Funky Nests Contest. Sign up at naturesnotebook.org. celebrateurbanbirds.org. Plan your next adventure at People of all ages can participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Learn more at birds.cornell.edu. blm.gov/visit! Life in the Stream Water Watch Join citizen scientists from around the globe A watershed in a worldwide water is the land that rain and watch. Find out more at 8 melted snow flow across and through monitorwater.org. on the way to streams, rivers, wetlands, and Stream Selfie lakes. The health of stream water depends on the Help scientists learn quality of the watershed. Watersheds also affect the more about the health of our water people use at home, school, and work. streams. Take a picture of a stream in your neighborhood, Much of the watershed in the West includes public lands. One answer a few questions, of the BLM’s many jobs is managing land and water resources and share at streamselfie.org. to protect those watersheds. If a stream or river becomes contaminated, that can harm the fish, the wildlife, and the people who depend on the watershed. How healthy are America’s streams? Citizen scientists are helping to find the answer. Healthy streams attract a wide variety, or diversity, of living things. One way to judge the health of a stream is by counting the different kinds, or species, of animals living in the stream. Counting Creek Critters Give your neighborhood stream a checkup by counting the number of insect- and worm-like critters (stream macroinvertebrates) that live in the water. Use the Creek Critters Data Sheet to identify and record the species you see. Materials: • Pan or shallow container for holding creek water • Net or cup for scooping up water bugs • Magnifier (optional) • Pencil or pen • Ruler (see side of page) • Creek Critters Data Sheet Find a free app for identifying stream macroinvertebrates at iwla.org/aquabugs.