Microblitz Citizen Science

Our Bush Ranger Cadets have been helping start up a new Citizen Science project in conjunction with the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Western Australia.

Called Microblitz, the project involves members of the community taking soil samples from around the state, and sending them in for DNA sequencing by the Microblitz team.

The team will then be able to produce a map of soil microbial activity useful for industry and agriculture.

Our Cadets worked to develop the instructions being distributed with the Microblitz sampling kits, and collected the first 34 samples for the project during their trip to Millstream Chichester National Park in July.

Winthrop Professor Andy Whiteley

Our School Chaplain, and Unit Leader, Andrew Paul, was recently interviewed, along with Winthrop Professor Andy Whiteley from UWA, by the Bush Telegraph program on ABC Radio National.

The pair were also interviewed by 'The Naked Scientists', a science based radio program on BBC Radio in the UK.

The Microblitz program will continue over the next 4 years, and our Cadets will be collecting samples on all of their camps during that period.

If you are interested in volunteering to collect samples (it is as easy as digging a small hole) and becoming a Citizen Scientist yourself, details can be found on the Microblitz website.

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