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Community science plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between scientific research and the general public. It empowers individuals, regardless of their background, to actively participate in data collection and contribute to research efforts.
The return of river otters, once a rare sight on the urban, degraded Elizabeth River, has inspired a new collaboration between the Elizabeth River Project, and the River Otter Ecology Project and FieldScope, two national organizations promoting community science to understand and protect river otters.
Otter Spotters report the date, time, and location of their river otter sightings and river otter sign (e.g., scat!). Just report the number of river otters in a FieldScope account and what behavior you observe. Photos and videos of your sighting are highly encouraged! For questions, contact Victoria Dunch, vdunch@elizabethriver.org.
Want to hold your own clean-up event with your school, business, organization or neighborhood group? That’s awesome! Just send your results, photos and some of the most common and uncommon things you find during your cleanup to: Kayla Gradwell at kgradwell@elizabethriver.org. Or, share it on social media and tag us.
Help the Elizabeth River Project understand how our native oysters are naturally reseeding throughout the river. Hang a cage with recycled oyster shell to ‘catch the spat,’ baby oysters floating along in the water column. Cage checkout is May 2024 and cage return is September 2024. For questions, contact Victoria Dunch, vdunch@elizabethriver.org.
OspreyWatch is a global community of observers focused on breeding osprey. Osprey are one of very few truly global sentinels for aquatic health. They feed almost exclusively on live fish throughout their entire life cycle. They are a top consumer within aquatic ecosystems and are very sensitive to both overfishing and environmental contaminants.
The mission of OspreyWatch is to collect information on a large enough spatial scale to be useful in addressing three of the most pressing issues facing aquatic ecosystems including global climate change, depletion of fish stocks, and environmental contaminants.
The Elizabeth River Project is partnering with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) to enhance water quality monitoring in the Elizabeth River and Bay. Community scientists are helping validate and confirm readings from NASA satellites that monitor the Chesapeake Bay with their water sample submissions. The project results will not only help us monitor the health of the Chesapeake Bay, but will lead to better tools by which to monitor coastal waters around the world! For questions, contact Victoria Dunch, vdunch@elizabethriver.org.
Thank you for your interest in the Elizabeth River Project’s Ryan Resilience Lab. We’re delighted that our site is in high demand. As the Ryan Resilience Lab is operated by a small non-profit with a big environmental mission, please help us make sure your event is a great fit.
Our priority is to host groups with relevance to our mission: to restore the Elizabeth River through equitable collaboration with diverse communities, governments, and businesses. When space and staff support are available, we are happy to host such groups free of charge, but do request that you consider an organizational membership and allow us to offer the opportunity for individual memberships.
Please fill this form out at least 30 days in advance of the event.