The Nature Conservancy has awarded Jared Starr, a research associate with the National Center for Digital Government (NCDG), a contract to develop a series of insect pest identification videos.
Starr, a master’s student in the Environmental Conservation department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, secured the funding thanks to the positive response environmental professionals have given earlier invasive plant videos that he created with fellow NCGD research associates Lena Fletcher and Nate Bush. Those videos were created for the Outsmart Invasive Species project, which enlists the help of “citizen scientists” to identify and report invasive species using smartphone technology.
The new videos will be part of the Nature Conservancy’s Healthy Urban Trees Initiative, a nationwide project that aims to keep urban trees healthy and prevent widespread destruction by invasive insects. Starr’s videos will target the Asian longhorned beetle, the emerald ash borer, the hemlock woolly adelgid, the winter moth and the gypsy moth.
To watch Starr’s earlier training videos and a commercial he created advertising the Outsmart Invasive Species app, visit www.youtube.com/user/OutsmartProject.
The Outsmart project is a collaborative effort led by Associate Professor Charles Schweik (environmental conservation and public policy) and Jennifer Fish, director of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Service Forestry program. It is funded through a Forest Service grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
NCDG was created with support from the National Science Foundation to develop research and infrastructure for the emerging field of information technology and governance. It is housed at the Center for Public Policy and Administration, the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at UMass Amherst.