We have some happy news. Alitaptap is now one of the Featured Projects on the front page of SciStarter.
If you have never heard of SciStarter, that is fine. This story explains what it is, why being there matters for fireflies, and how you can help.
What SciStarter is
SciStarter is a place to find real science you can take part in. It is run by the SciStarter Foundation, a non-profit organisation, and it lists more than 3,000 research projects, events and tools. Anyone can use it to "find, join, and contribute to science".
The projects are all kinds. On the day Alitaptap appeared among the featured projects, its neighbours were a project that trains computers to spot flaws in space telescope pictures, and another that asks people to keep storm drains clear of leaves so streets do not flood.
What they have in common is you. Each one needs ordinary people to look, count, record or share. That is what citizen science means: science that gets done because many people help a little.
Why this matters for fireflies
Fireflies are hard to study. They are small, they come out only at night, and they only glow for a few weeks each year. A place can lose its fireflies and nobody writes it down.
A map fixes that one sighting at a time. Every record has a date and a place, and thousands of them together show where fireflies still glow and where they have stopped. SciStarter describes our goal in exactly those words.
Our map already holds records from all over the world, but they are spread very unevenly. Some places have hundreds of sightings, while whole regions have only a handful, or none at all. That is usually not because the fireflies are missing. It is because nobody nearby has written them down yet.
People who go looking for a project on SciStarter can now find a firefly map that works from a phone, in nine languages, with no account and no app to install. Every one of them who logs a sighting fills in a little of those gaps.
You will also find other firefly projects on SciStarter, such as Firefly Watch and Firefly Atlas. That is good company to be in. Fireflies need all the eyes they can get.
How you can help
You do not need to be a scientist to help. Here are three simple things you can do:
- Log a firefly when you see one. It takes a minute on the map. Even "I saw a few blinking lights near the river" is useful, as long as it has a date and a place.
- Run a firefly walk with your class, family or neighbours. Our firefly-walk kit has a printable recording sheet and simple rules for watching without harming them.
- Share the SciStarter page with someone who likes nature or science: Alitaptap on SciStarter.
Thank you
Alitaptap is built and run by one person, after work, because his own children had never seen a real firefly display. Being featured on SciStarter means that more people who want to help science can now find this little map.
Thank you to the SciStarter team, and thank you to everyone who has ever stopped on a warm night to write down what they saw. Every light you record helps.