Education and Outreach – MassMammals Watch

Education

The MassMammals education team works with elementary and high school classrooms to include students in active research! Teachers are provided with a trail camera to capture photographs of local mammals and frequent lesson plans to teach students about the scientific process as it relates to ecology research. Student researchers on the project may visit to teach lessons or describe their experiences working on the project. For more information and examples of past lesson plans, click here, or contact citscima@amherst.edu.

Sightings Needed!

There are a few locations around Massachusetts where we have not received many mammal sightings. In order to have a complete picture of mammal populations, we need help from citizen scientists all across the state. If you or someone you know lives in or around the circled areas on the map below, we would love to hear from you! If you would like to help share our project, we have attached some of our fliers that can be printed out and posted as well!

Share our Fliers!

We are a citizen science/ community science project that relies on volunteers just like you, and we need your help to spread the word!

In the Media

MassMammals Watch is honored to have been featured in local and state news several times since we were founded in mid-2020! Thank you to all of the news organizations who have helped us reach more people with news of our project, and by doing so, helped us learn more about Massachusetts mammal populations. Here are some of the news articles who have featured us!

Boston.com: Black bear population booms in Massachusetts

Masslive News Article: MassBears researchers seek to estimate state’s black bear population through DNA analysis, observations

Amherst STEM Network: Mammals of the Pioneer Valley*

Daily Hampshire Gazette: Pioneer Valley Mammal Citizen Science project seeks volunteers*

The Berkshire Eagle: Gene Chague | Berkshire Woods and Waters: What is the MassBears project?