{"id":195,"date":"2020-08-14T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/?p=195"},"modified":"2020-08-17T08:06:13","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T12:06:13","slug":"great-georgia-pollinator-census-returns-this-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/2020\/08\/great-georgia-pollinator-census-returns-this-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Georgia Pollinator Census returns this August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Bumblebee on zinnia Photo by: James Morgan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Students and families are encouraged to participate in the second annual Great Georgia Pollinator Census, which will be held by UGA Extension August 21-22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 About 4,500 participants documented more than 131,000 insect sightings as part of the inaugural census in 2019, and more than 100 events related to the project took place around the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s count may look a bit different with social distancing recommendations in place, but organizers are encouraging participants to plan on counting pollinators at home, whether solo or with their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Census takers are asked to count pollinators on a favorite pollinator plant with abundant insect activity for 15 minutes for each of the two days using the provided observation sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe goals of the project are to gather data on pollinator insect populations, foster pollinator habitats and increase entomological literacy about these insects,\u201d said Becky Griffin, UGA Extension school garden and pollinator census coordinator. She modeled the program on the Great Backyard Bird Count, a citizen science program run by Cornell University that asks people to count the birds they see in their backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can\u2019t tell a honey bee from a bumble bee, don\u2019t worry. An \u201cInsect Counting and Identification Guide\u201d on the homepage of the census website provides detailed instructions and photo examples for classification, which is helpful, since there are more than 500 bee species reported in the state. Insects are categorized into one of eight categories during the observation period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Bumble bees<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Carpenter bees<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2022 Small bees<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2022 Honey bees<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2022 Wasps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2022 Flies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Butterflies and moths<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Other insects<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Those interested in counting should visit ggapc.org to sign up and subscribe to the monthly newsletter about pollinator gardening and insect identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s Facebook group, Georgia Pollinator Census, has grown to nearly 1,500 members and includes many educational resources including videos and files available for teachers to use in the classroom like \u201cHoney Bee Roles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSchools doing STEAM projects are also welcome, and the census can be administered remotely for teachers whose schools are meeting virtually,\u201d explained Griffin. An educator page, including lesson plans for download, is also available at ggapc.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, including publications about recommended plants to attract pollinators, visit t.uga.edu\/6cm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Josh Paine, marketing professional, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students and families are encouraged to participate in the second annual Great Georgia Pollinator Census, which will be held by UGA Extension August 21-22.  About 4,500 participants documented more than 131,000 insect sightings as part of the inaugural census in 2019, and more than 100 events related to the project took place around the state. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/doughertyhort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}