Become a community scientist with Dr. Joey Hulbert and IATC!

Are you or is someone in your household a budding scientist? Or perhaps just an avid hiker with an interest in keeping our local forests healthy? Would you like to help scientists better serve our beloved foliage? Then we have the program for you!

  IATC is excited to welcome Dr. Joey Hulbert for two events this month: a webinar on June 20th and a guided forest health walk on June 23rd. Dr. Hulbert specializes in forest pathology and public engagement in science and has helped coordinate some incredible methods for citizen science as the program director for Forest Health Watch. The Forest Health Watch is a program to engage Pacific Northwest communities in tree health research and learning.

Forest Health Watch’s pilot project is focused on Western Red Cedar dieback, with a necessity for both visual observations and local soil samples. By becoming a “citizen scientist” you can help advance scientific knowledge and devise solutions to forest health issues. Dr. Hulbert’s webinar will cover some of the findings to-date and demonstrate the utility of community scientists, while the guided walk will be a hands-on exploration of indicators of forest health culminating in collection of soil samples. To join the webinar or walk, please register at the provided links. Feel free to collect and bring extra soil samples with you! If you can’t join us, feel free to collect samples or observations on your own time and submit them using the instructions here.

You can find more information about Dr. Hulbert and his work, including detailed instructions on how to collect soil samples, on the Forest Health Watch website.