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The Milkweed Adaptation Research and Education Network is excited to announce that we are developing and piloting a new group of flexible observational protocols investigating milkweed phenology, herbivory, and pollination.  Our ultimate goal is to generate information that will support milkweed restoration practices for monarch butterflies while integrating rigorous research into the classroom and replicating protocols over large geographic scales. The project is currently in development, but you can review drafts of materials at http://marenweb.com.

We hope to recruit a small but diverse group educators to try out our protocols, help to generate some preliminary data and instructional materials, and provide feedback.  One of our goals is to develop learning and inquiry materials that can be flexibly deployed in in-person or online educational settings, including videos from which students might extract data that can be entered for analysis. The investigations are most aligned with ecology, evolution, and/or conservation concepts.

If you are interested in joining our protocol evaluation team, or if you’d simply like to sign up for our mailing list, please complete this google form.  Since time is limited, we ask that you submit applications by Friday, July 3, at 12 noon CT.  We hope to be able to provide protocol evaluation team members a stipend of $150 for approximately 5-6 hours of work per week for two weeks. Applicants should have access to a population of 6+ common milkweed plants that they can observe/measure.  The commitment will begin with a virtual orientation to the materials on Monday, June 6, at 3:30 CT and end with a debrief on Friday, July 17, at 2:30 CT.   

Please reach out with any questions.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,