Counting butterflies is an important aspect of insect conservation programs that is often performed by volunteer scientists from the public. In this interactive outreach activity, students will search for and count butterflies (3D butterfly stickers) placed around the room after a brief demonstration on how scientists use butterfly counts to study butterfly populations and inform conservation. At our table, students will learn about statistical uncertainty and how increasing sample size leads to more precise estimates of butterflies. Students that participate will be able to choose a small insect sticker to take home.
The activity can be completed in 3-5 minutes and can be run with 2-4 people. Having less than 2 people at the table would be too chaotic and having more than 4 people would not be more helpful.
In this repository, there is all the material to replicate the outreach activity. Below I briefly describe the subdirectories of this repository.
scripts: in this subdirectory, there is a script named modelOutreachButterflCounts.R that can be run from source if the user has the proper permissions to read in a google sheet to their R console.
documents: in this subdirectory, there are associated documents that are useful for preparing for the outreach event. The directory includes:
- ButterfliesCountPoster.pdf; which is a printable poster to have on the table (Link to poster on Canva)
- ButterfliesCountPoster.png; same poster but saved as a png
-GMSD_ButterfliesCount_LessonPlan.docx; lesson plan with overall learning objectives, lesson plan, and set-up instructions
-GMSD_dataSheet.docx; sheet to print with multiple copies for students to sign-in and document how long they spend searching for butterflies
-ZipkinLabGMSD_SignUpBlurb.docx; Short blurb used to describe activity when sending to event organizers to reserve a table