About the BioBlitz

On August 29-30, 2015, Macaulay Honors College is partnering with Freshkills Park to hold our 2015 BioBlitz on the site of what was once the world’s largest landfill. Over 300 sophomores teamed up with about 40 scientists to find over 400 sophomores will team up with about 30 scientists and local naturalists to find as many species as they can in 24 hours.

The City of New York has been hard at work converting this heavily human-altered landscape into what will eventually be one of NYC’s largest public parks. The BioBlitz will be held in North Park, which was the capped in the late 1990s. Our sophomores will get the opportunity to explore this unique habitat with a group of enthusiastic scientists and Freshkills park volunteers. We hope to get as complete a species inventory as we can in 24 hours and this will be the first such survey ever on the site. Our BioBlitz will contribute valuable baseline data for the park so that future scientists and land managers can track the park’s progress as species enter and leave this changing habitat.

We hope to achieve our two main goals for the BioBlitz: educating students about the science of ecology in the city and cataloguing as many species as possible in 24 hours. Students will get a transformational educational experience with real scientific data collection in a complex ecosystem and also contribute to the environmental monitoring efforts of New York City.

Posted on August 13, 2015 10:40 AM by klodonnell