Stephanie Juchs, Community Education Coordinator, Casey Trees

1. Urban Forests as Citizen Science
Laboratories
Stephanie Juchs, Community Education Coordinator
Casey Trees Washington, D.C.

2. Casey Trees
What we do
Our Mission
• To restore, enhance and protect the
tree canopy of the nation’s capital.

3. Casey Trees
Citizen Forester Program
• Qualification- taking
classes on tree biology,
benefits and
identification
• Provided the skills
needed to participate in
initial street tree
inventory and i-Tree Eco
inventory
• Over 1,400 and growing!

4. Citizen Science
• Phenology Monitoring
• Urban Tree Growth & Longevity
• Trees and Temperature

5. Citizen Science
Casey Trees phenology monitoring is a local
implementation of the USA-NPN Nature’s
Notebook program
• Volunteers monitor an individual specimen
through the seasons, recording changing
phenophases
• Allows citizen scientists to contribute to a
national dataset being used to investigate
how species and landscapes are responding
to climate change
https://www.usanpn.org/nn/casey-trees
Acer rubrum (red maple); Photo credit: D. Hartel

6. Citizen Science
Urban Tree Growth &
Longevity Working Group
• Addresses the need for urban tree
monitoring protocols and
standardized data collection
• Tests accuracy of novice,
intermediate and expert data
collectors

7. Citizen Science
Benefits
• Creates engagement opportunities for volunteers
• Generates large datasets while minimizing staff time and
resources
• Produces knowledge for a purpose, informing our
organizational practices and the field of urban forestry
Challenges
• Building momentum and consistency with projects with long-term
returns
• Empowering citizen scientists with the confidence to
participate in these efforts