A Picture Post is Worth Thousands of Pictures

By Heather Lumpkin, Research and Monitoring Coordinator

As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, but did you know that a Picture Post is worth thousands of pictures? Picture posts are 8-sided platforms for taking repeat photographs of a landscape. They create a 360° time-lapse photo series that documents plant growth and other environmental changes for years to come.  On April 26, 2014 the Discovery Center hosted a Picture Post Workshop to draw awareness to this exciting citizen science project.  This workshop was attended by 16 people! 

During the workshop participants learned about the picture post network (http://picturepost.unh.edu/) through a live webinar with Dr. Annette Schloss, coordinator of the Picture Post project and research scientist at the University of New Hampshire.  The Picture Post Network started in 2005 with just 5 posts, but has grown to a nationwide network of over 140 posts!  Picture Posts have been used to monitor canopy cover, water and snow levels, phenology (seasonal events such as bloom time), and even tree growth. 

Workshop participants enjoyed several hands-on activities.  They painted Picture Post platforms to take home for use in their own backyard and used purple filter paper to identify stressed and unhealthy vegetation.  A healthy plant appears green to our eyes because it absorbs red and blue light, reflecting the green.  Unhealthy plants do not use red and blue light as effectively and reflect more of these colors.  When held up to the eye, purple filter paper blocks green light, allowing you to detect the lighter colored, stressed plants.  At this time of the year the entire lawn looked stressed! 

  

The Picture Post workshop was a success!  Right now the 9 Picture Posts scattered around the Discovery Center Trails are the only ones registered in Wisconsin with the Picture Post Network. We hope to see several new posts popping up nearby as workshop participants install their newly painted Picture Post platforms. On a survey of workshop participants, over 75% indicated that they hope to tell someone else about the Picture Post project and over 80% indicated that they plan to install and maintain one or more new Picture Posts. 

Everyone is invited to contribute photographs at the Discovery Center Picture Posts.  To find the locations of Discovery Center posts visit (http://picturepost.unh.edu/) and zoom in on the Discovery Center on the map.  The Discovery Center has developed signs, like the one below.  These signs will be mounted on the Discovery Center’s 9 Picture Posts providing instructions for anyone who is interested in helping provide photographs.  Vegetation will be changing rapidly as spring progresses.  We hope that you will contribute photographs to help us document these changes!