[ECOLOG-L] Citizen scientists needed to help us online with marsh ecology

[Pennings, Steven C]

We need citizen scientists to help us better understand the ecology of the salt 
marsh. We have two web sites where you can help us with our research.
The first web site is the "Image Matching Game" site 
(https://scalingupmarshscience.marsci.uga.edu ). Since 2010, we have taken 
thousands of overlapping photographs of a salt marsh, and we need to align the 
photographs to create detailed maps for each year (each year consists of about 
10,000 photographs). Because the images are taken from close to the marsh 
surface, and lack strong visual features, software programs are unable to align 
them automatically. Humans are better at this task than computers, and can 
identify matching features in pairs of photographs.
The second web site is the "Marsh Explorer" 
(https://marshexplorer.marsci.uga.edu/ ).  This site asks you to identify the 
plant and animal species present in the photographs. This is a harder task, but 
it gets us the detailed information that we need to understand the distribution 
of each species. It is also more educational, because users will learn the 
names of the common marsh species.
Both web sites teach some basic facts about salt marsh ecology. (If you have 
ideas about facts that are missing, please send us suggestions using the 
feedback link).
We'd love your help at both sites, and your feedback! Please pass this on to 
your friends and to educators who might want to use it in their classes.
Steven Pennings, University of Houston, 
spenni...@uh.edu

[ECOLOG-L] Citizen scientists needed to help us online with marsh ecology

[Pennings, Steven C]

We need citizen scientists to help us better understand the ecology of the salt 
marsh. We have two web sites where you or your students can help us with our 
research. 

The first web site is the "Image Matching Game" at 
http://129.7.249.177:85/index/signin or ScalingUpMarshScience.cs.uh.edu. Since 
2010, we have taken thousands of overlapping photographs of a salt marsh, and 
we need to align the photographs to create detailed maps for each year (each 
year consists of about 10,000 photographs). Because the images are taken from 
close to the marsh surface, and lack strong visual features, software programs 
are unable to align them automatically. Humans are better at this task than 
computers, and can identify matching features in pairs of photographs. 

The second web site is the "Marsh Explorer" at 
http://marshexplorer.cs.uh.edu:86/.  This site asks you to identify the plant 
and animal species present in the photographs. This is a harder task, but it 
gets us the detailed information that we need to understand the distribution of 
each species. It is also more educational, because users will learn the names 
of the common marsh species. 
Both web sites teach some basic facts about salt marsh ecology. (If you have 
ideas about facts that are missing, please send us suggestions using the 
feedback link).

We'd love your help at both sites, and your feedback. Educators, please 
consider this as an extra credit assignment in your classes. It will expose 
your students to the idea of citizen science, and also teach them a little bit 
about salt marsh ecology.

Steven Pennings, University of Houston, spenni...@uh.edu

[ECOLOG-L] Citizen scientists needed to help us online with marsh ecology

[Pennings, Steven C]

We need citizen scientists to help us better understand the ecology of the salt 
marsh. We have over 50,000 overlapping photographs of a salt marsh, taken every 
year starting in 2010, and need to align them to create detailed maps for each 
year. Because the images are taken from close to the marsh surface, and lack 
strong visual features, software programs are unable to align them 
automatically. The Image Matching Game (http://129.7.249.177:85/index/signin 
or ScalingUpMarshScience.cs.uh.edu) allows citizen scientists to help us by 
identifying matching features in pairs of photographs. This information will 
then be used to create a photographic map of a large area, and to study how 
this area changes from year to year. At the same time, users learn some basic 
facts about salt marsh ecology. Please pass this on to your friends and to 
educators who might want to use it in their classes. Faculty members, please 
consider this as a fun extra credit activity for your courses this fall.

Steven Pennings, University of Houston, spenni...@uh.edu