A summary of SeasonWatch in 2019

Trees in 2019

In 2019, nearly 56,000 (up from 20,000 in 2018) trees were observed across the country. Of these, around 4500 were observed regularly through the year and a majority (94%) were observed once (casual observations). See the maps below to know where these trees were. Do notice Kerala's overwhelming participation and comparable spatial spread of regular and casual observations.

A teacher with her students at GHSS Kuttamassery seen exploring leaves in their school campus as part of the education project

Events: We organized three Tree Quests in March, June and September, each 4-days long, and a month-long 'Species of the Month' challenge in December in 2019 (more below). More details on the events and the results can be seen here.

Species of the Month challenge: In December last year, we organized an event to gather information on some species that are either reporting early or late flowering, or change in leaf-renewal pattern during the cold dry season. See some highlights from this event below.

Casual observation using Website: Earlier this feature was available only on the app but is now also available on the website. It is especially helpful for our schools as often times a large number of observations are made by multiple students. These can be easily uploaded together at one go using the website by a teacher.

Offline observations on the App: Users can record observations for their regular trees even when offline. This is useful for users who don't always have good network. Up to 100 offline observations, with one observation per regular tree per week, can be added. These observations get automatically uploaded when the user has network next.

Delete erroneous casual observation: On the app, users can delete an erroneous casual observation and enter the correct one.

Social Media: Around each bioblitz event, we organized a bunch of fun activities, quizzes, and challenges on our social media pages to popularize trees. Take a look at a few of these activities below. For more, please visit our website where all these activities are available for free download to educators.

Education Project to explore trees: Between July and September last year, we worked closely with students and teachers in 3 schools in Kerala: GHSS (Kuttamassery), Bhavan's Vidya Mandir (Elamakkara) and Nalanda Public School (Thammanam), on an education project that aimed at learning about trees through direct observations and discussions among peers. During 12 weeks, the students explored leaves, flowers and fruits in their school campuses through activities designed to observe them in detail. The sessions encouraged students to ask questions and work in groups. The project was implemented by one teacher in each school and one of our team member who worked closely with the teachers. Needless to say that the students loved spending time outdoors, as well as quizzing one another and their teacher, and sharing their own experiences as well as stories that they had heard from their elders.

Activity sheets filled by students. In this activity, students explored leaves through drawing using leaf symmetry and join the dots (above) and observing and drawing two leaves they found in their school campus (below)