7/24 Site Monitoring

Monitoring: Collecting scientific data with sophisticated volunteers

How do we know all this restoration work is actually working?

The Green Seattle Partnership has been working on a set of standardized methods for collecting data both pre- and post-removal to monitor the success of forest restoration projects across the city. This training will provide the opportunity to learn more about the process of monitoring and how you can start collecting this data in the field for your own restoration projects. Training in field methods, data collection forms, and easy-to-use Access and Excel spreadsheets will be provided. You will be able to use the information you collected right away to see how your site is doing and to get quantitative information about your efforts.  Participants will collect data from a nearby site, and see how simple monitoring can be for volunteers.  Already have some experience monitoring? Great! We could use your help teaching other Forest Stewards.

This training will ensure that we are all using the same approved standardized protocols so that GSP staff and Forest Stewards can better combine and use all of the data across the city. The GSP staff knows that there have been great improvements to sites across Seattle, but how can they quantify all of the work that 70+ forest stewards do? Learn how GSP staff uses the data collected to evaluate progress of the city-wide effort. 

 REGISTER HERE FOR MONITORING TRAINING

Instructors Ella Elman and Nelson Salisbury, from EarthCorps Science (formerly Seattle Urban Nature), will share the methods they have been developing specifically for the Green Seattle Partnership. Nelson is an ecologist and GIS specialist at EarthCorps where his primary duties include designing and carrying out scientific studies to inventory, monitor and evaluate habitats on public and private lands throughout the Puget Sound region.  Nelson holds a degree in Botany from Humboldt State University.   Ella has more than 10 years of field experience conducting ecological monitoring and invasive species surveys in forested habitats in the Pacific Northwest. Ella received her M.S. in Forest Ecosystem Analysis from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University.  EarthCorps Science provides training to community groups, professional staff and the Washington Native Plant Society Native Plant Stewardship Program.  They also collect monitoring data for the GSP program and conduct vegetation assessments in public parks all over the region.  This experience gives them a great perspective on and appreciation for the data that forest stewards could produce.   Joanna Nelson, GSP Project Manager at Cascade Land Conservancy, will join in helping to make the professionally-collected data relevant for volunteer Forest Stewards.  Joanna knows the value of a Forest Steward’s time, and wants to make sure that what you are doing is going to benefit your site and the program.

Click here for directions to Rainier Community Center

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