Submitted by Jesse Hildebrand
VP Education at Exploring By The Seat Of Your Pants,
RCGS Fellow – Founder of Science Literacy Week
When I was a kid I had a few experiences and loves that changed my life. The first was watching Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. His overflowing passion for animals and the natural world lit a fire in me that has only grown with time. My Christmas lists were every series he made and I had a poster on my bedroom wall of him. The second was deciding one day to get in my own backyard as a ten year old to try and see how many species I could find.
These pods were in a camping chair I had, and when I opened them they were full of dead spiders! Turns out that certain wasps leave piles of spiders for their larvae to eat as they develop
What began as a plan for a ten minute outing turned into a two hour bonanza of discovery as with magnifying glass and sketchbook in tow I found 72 species! Some were bigger like birds and squirrels, but most were in the undergrowth—spiders, beetles, ants galore. Things I had no name for because I’d never seen anything like them. The scale was amazing—imagine walking down the street and having a person walk by who was thirty feet tall! Ants live this every minute with other ants—indeed, from this adventure I learned that an entire colony of the worlds smallest ant can fit inside the head of just one of the world’s largest ant. That still blows my mind.
These experiences put me on a lifelong path of learning. I read every animal book. I got animal fact file cards on subscription. I own basically every Planet Earth type series there is. The fact that we share the planet with millions of other creatures that solve the problem of life in so many different ways is mesmerizing to me. And getting that thrill all started in my home and my own backyard.
That’s what BackyardBio is about. Getting out in nature to explore and learn what lives near you. You can take part with as simple a tool as a sketchbook or camera and just capture images of what you see. But now, you can share them in so many cool ways. BackyardBio has a twitter handle where you can share and see images from around the world (#backyardbio). We’ve got an INaturalist page where you can share your observations (with a teacher or parent) as part of a global dataset that actually helps scientists (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/backyardbio) and by registering with us at Exploring By The Seat of Your Pants you can be connected with other classrooms around the world to encourage each other to find more and to see what amazing creatures live worldwide!
An ebony jewelwing, one of the world’s best names for an animal; I spotted this in a local park
For me, just starting this project has inspired me to learn more about what lives near me again. I’ve discovered Killdeer birds in a local park I had no idea were there. I’ve been reaching out to naturalists to try and figure out just what the heck an Alligator I saw in Florida last year is eating (still no idea). I’ve even taken to getting down on my hands and knees to sift through my garden looking for insects again. It’s a contagious addiction I fear. So this September, get out and explore with me. Together, let’s come to learn more about and appreciate life on earth like never before!