Environment

Earth Challenge 2020

by Inga Yandell

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN), the U.S. Department of State’s Eco-Capitals Forum, and the Wilson Center are launching Earth Challenge 2020 (EC2020)—a global citizen science initiative that will demonstrate how small digital acts of science can add up to global change.

Using mobile technology and an open source citizen science data infrastructure, EC2020 will get a pulse on our environment and empower people around the world to help monitor and improve environmental and human health. EC2020 mobilizes the existing citizen science community while building capacity for individuals around the globe to collaboratively address the world’s most pressing challenges.

As a global call to action, Earth Challenge 2020 can become a nexus for collecting and harmonizing one billion data points in any research areas that impact environmental and human health. At the same time, the “core” research questions identified through a public call offering practical opportunities for communities to collaborate on.

The dual objectives of the challenge support an integrated strategy for engagement and particpation.

  • Increase the amount of open and interoperable citizen science data to help answer more complex, global questions than any dataset could address alone.
  • Through a public call to action, volunteers will use the Earth Challenge 2020 application, mobile app framework, and hardware tools to collect new data. Information will be used to create a data catalogue and API-enabled data integration platform to facilitate discovery and access of existing citizen science information.

Taking a creative approach to discovery and engagement there will also be a series of videos by Wilson NOW available on the platform. Filmed in Washington the series features brief, incisive conversations with leading experts that make sense of today’s headlines and the forces behind them.

In the first Wilson NOW, John Milewski, speaks with Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, and The Wilson Center’s Alison Parker about; how the campaign will engage millions of global citizens to aggregate and collect more than one billion data points from areas including air quality, water quality, biodiversity, pollution, and human health. 

In the subsequent Wilson NOW, John Milewski discusses the potential of citizen science initiatives with Landon Van Dyke, Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, and Anne Bowser, The Wilson Center’s Director of Innovation.

Follow the Earth Challenge 2020 Community @EarthDayNetwork, @Earth_Challenge, and @WilsonsSTIP

BEJournal will be supporting EC2020 and you can contribute story ideas or follow us @EarthEndeavours

SEA the Potential in Our Oceans

by Inga Yandell

Our world is made up of more water than land, much of which is yet to be explored and its secrets revealed. At its depths lie a sense of beauty and calm witnessed by few. This rich stillness is found beyond human reach, and artfully distilled in the images of award-winning underwater photographer, Christian Vizl in his new book, Silent Kingdom: A World Beneath the Waves (Earth Aware Editions, 2019, $50.00).

Photographer Christian Vizl explores a world beneath the waves in Silent Kingdom.

The photos are purposefuly devoid of color, remnicient of a Japanese ink painting, reflecting dappled light and dulcet tones. Seen in black-and-white, water imparts a story, and its magic is captivating.

Through a range of undersea scenes and moods—from the ferocity of sharks to the playful dance of dolphins—Vizl turns aquatic creatures and marine seascapes into visions of sublime grace and beauty suspended in time and space. With each turn of the page, venture deeper into the one realm in which humans do not reign and discover an unforgettable world that few have ever seen.

Christian’s minimalist style evokes a deep reverence for nature. © Christian Vizil

Though the ocean covers over 70 percent of planet Earth, over 80 percent of that vast underwater wilderness remains unexplored. As the impact of human activity reaches these once-untouched regions, it is more important than ever to acknowledge both the preciousness of our seas and the necessity of protecting one of Earth’s last truly wild frontiers. Silent Kingdom is an ode to the beauty of the ocean and the magnificent creatures that inhabit it as well as a call to action to preserve our planet’s fragile underwater world.

Christian Vizl was born in Mexico City and has been a photographer for three decades. He has won dozens of professional photography awards, including Wildlife Photographer of the Year and International Photographer of the Year, and his images have been published in numerous publications, including National Geographic and Ocean Geographic.

Discover the Deep

Dr. Sylvia A. Earle is president and chairman of Mission Blue. She has been called “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times, named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and chosen as Time magazine’s first “hero for the planet.” She is an oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer.

Explore Mission Blue

Earth Aware Editions is committed to broadening awareness and understanding the unique challenges of our time through powerful and provocative publications. From climate change and conservation to the accelerating loss of diversity in our planet’s species and cultures, the continued erosion of our biosphere and ethnosphere cannot be ignored.

Buy Silent Kingdom

App Helps You Identify Birds By Their Song

by Inga Yandell

BirdGenie™ is a breakthrough app that helps anyone with an Apple® or Android® smartphone or tablet accurately identify birds in the backyard, local park, or on the nature trail—all with the tap of a button! It’s like Shazam® for birds—just hold up your phone, record the bird singing, and BirdGenie™ helps you identify the species. The app’s highly developed sound identification ability and expert matching system enable bird enthusiasts to achieve an accuracy unheard of in the birding field. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about the birds around them.

BirdGenie™ includes up to two hundred vocalization types for one hundred species: literally all of the birds likely to be encountered in a backyard or local park, or on a hike, in North America at any time of the year. And the app is easy to use. Just point your smartphone or tablet at a bird, and tap the screen when the bird starts singing. The app’s automatic pre-record feature ensures that you won’t miss the beginning of the song and BirdGenie’s™ patented, highly accurate expert system matches the recording to the closest species. The app’s sophisticated noise-reduction feature means that even in noisy environments, where there is conversation or traffic, you can discover what bird you’re listening to.

Beyond specifying a bird species, BirdGenie™ provides sample songs and spectrograms to compare with your own recording and to guarantee a confident match. The app also includes pictures of all plumages, information about habitat and behavior, and links to further reading. It even has 3-D models for some of the species so you can match different views of a bird. You can share your recordings, photos, and matches with friends and other users, and if you’re so inclined, you can anonymously share recordings to a scientific database to help researchers learn about birdsong variations. No internet connection is required for anything but sharing, making the program accessible everywhere. Perfect for anyone who wants to know what birds are singing around them, BirdGenie™ takes bird identification to a whole new awesome level.

With BirdGenie™ You Can

  • Quickly identify most birds just by recording their songs.
  • Look at vivid images of the bird—some in 3-D!
  • Listen to samples of the bird’s various songs and compare them with your recording.
  • Keep a log of all your recordings.
  • Share your recordings, matches, and photos with friends and family.
  • Browse the built-in catalog to learn about local species, their other songs, their habits and diet, and much more.
  • Use the app anywhere, as no internet connection is required!

Important features of BirdGenie™

  • The matching expert system beats anything in the market today.
  • Easy-to-use guided user interface.
  • Effective noise-reduction system helps users make identifications in less-than-ideal environments.
  • Complete species accounts with multiple photos for all plumage types (some with 3-D models).
  • Comprehensive spectrograms (voiceprints of songs).

Technical Specifications

  • Requires iOS 10 or later. Compatible with all iPhones after iPhone 6 including 7, 8, X and iPad, iPad Mini, and iPod Touch.
  • Requires Android 5.0 and above. Compatible with most common Android phones and tablets.

Software written by Tom Stephenson, Stephen Travis Pope and Scott Whittle. BirdGenie™ is a trademark of Princeton University Press.

Shazam® is the registered trademark of Shazam Entertainment Limited and is not affiliated with Princeton University Press in any way.

Great Bear Rainforest IMAX

by Inga Yandell Animals

A Magical Environment. Unchanged for 10,000 years… Journey to a land of grizzlies, coastal wolves, sea otters and the all-white spirit bear — the rarest bear on earth — in the film Great Bear Rainforest. Hidden from the outside world, the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the wildest places left on earth. Found on Canada’s remote […]

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What is Conservation Photography?

by Inga Yandell Animals

In this video you can hear from Fellows with the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) first-hand on what conservation photography means to them and why they devote their lives to this effort. They explain the behind-the-scenes work that goes into capturing compelling images. iLCP supports visual storytellers in a shared mission of furthering environmental […]

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