Wildlife Camera Project

The wildlife camera project is designed to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to science education and foster critical thinking about the ecology of  the surrounding environment.    

The wildlife camera project begins, as any good science research should, with questions.  How do roads affect animal species diversity.  What is the effect of forest age and type on animal species abundance?  What animal species are most active during the day?  The night?  Questions are followed by hypotheses.  With questions and hypotheses  in mind, students can begin to think about where to place the wildlife cameras in order to best get results.  

Wildlife cameras are waterproof, digital cameras designed to be strapped to a tree and left to photograph animals as they pass by.  Equipped with heat and/or motion sensors, wildlife cameras are an ideal way to monitor wildlife.  Each photograph is stamped with time and temperature.  

Once photographs have been uploaded onto a computer, students can organize them by camera location at the Amherst College google maps  site.

From the google maps site, students can research the photographed species and begin to explore their data.