Community Engagement

  • Author(s)
    Karen Player
  • Category
    Education
  • Published
    27 November 2014
  • Read time
    2 minutes

The Australian Museum joined Sydney's largest BioBlitz with a display at Basecamp and running surveys.

The Sydney BioBlitz involves survey technique that harnesses people power to find out what’s living in an area. The BioBlitz was part of the IUCN World Parks Congress community event PlanetFest on Sunday 16 November at Sydney Olympic Park.

The focus of the Sydney BioBlitz was as a community engagement event highlighting the diversity of urban flora and fauna. Sydney’s largest Bioblitz attracted hundreds of people to take part in dip netting, bird watching and insect catching. The BioBlitz is an important event where people can use scientific techniques to learn more about the species in their local environment.

Insect sorting
The focus of the Sydney BioBlitz was as a community engagement event highlighting the diversity of urban flora and fauna. Image: Australian Museum
© Australian Museum

Volunteers helped us record 135 species during the BioBlitz which is a great achievement especially because the unpredictable weather. On the day, scientists Dan Bickel and Helen Smith were doing surveys, while Streamwatch Coordinator Greg McDonald and I were holding down the fort at the BioBlitz Basecamp. The highlights were engaging with the community and fielding some amazing and insightful question from kids. It was great to see so many families heading out to be part of the surveys.

Scientists were able to share their knowledge and passion and the community was able to do real science in the field with experts. Everyone had a great day out celebrating science and nature. It was a successful event and an important one for the Australian Museum. We’re active in several other citizen science programs like Streamwatch and DigiVols, and we used our expertise in this area to help support the Sydney BioBlitz.