High-Level Project Summary
Earth and its species need help! Due to climate change, habitat loss, chemicals, and over-fishing/hunting, humans have created an extinction event that has surpassed previous extinction rates by at least 10 fold! Our goal is to spread knowledge and awareness of endangered species and ways to protect them through a fun and educational app where citizen scientists can send back regional field data to compare and combine with satellite and aerial data. People in the local surroundings of the endangered species can help by taking pictures and send data back to a database.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Endangered Species Educational Game:
Although there are not any easy solutions to these problems, we feel the best way to start finding solutions is by spreading awareness of the endangered species that are both around the world and in your local community. Spreading awareness of the problem will get more people interested in helping and willing to take and send information back to NASA to help these species.
How it works:
Our app is designed to inform the general public about endangered species all around the world. The app would allow the user to click on red dots on a globe that represent the geographic location of these endangered species. Once clicked, the app would show the user the species, some facts about the species, how many are left, and conservation methods to ensure their survivability.
Over time, we can add more locations and species (endangered would be red dots, extinct would be black dots)) to show the gravity of the situation.
o go back to the world map to see more animals, the viewer can press the “w” key.
If we had more time, I would’ve liked to make a minigame in each section. Each of the red dots would become “Endanger Stations” and you can see information on the endangered or threatened species there, play some minigame like a quiz about the animal, a hide & seek game to find the animal hiding or even a battle game where you have to run away from a hunter, and be able to upload your own collected data, like photos, videos, or various sensor readings to be combined as field research in a database.
Going Further:
The final goal of the app would be to create a Pokémon-style app, where there are geo locations, that can show areas that have endangered species nearby. Users can go to these areas and if they see the species, an ivory billed woodpecker for example, they can take a picture and send it to a database that can collect this information.
Photos can be taken of animals, insects, flowers and trees for population count. Or photos and videos can be taken of snowpack, creek and river flow, insects and small animal population counts.
Field Data Collecting:
Alternatively, they can use their phone to send environmental data, such as temperature, weather, the number of insects, or types of fish in an area. The durability of phones can also allow users to take pictures and recordings of streams underwater and other more extreme conditions. This on the ground information can be extremely useful when combined with satellite and flight data.
Picture data can be added to pictures and videos for better time stamps and geo locations.
Space Agency Data
Looking at the five projects presented in this challenge, we wanted to create a way for more people to be able to interact I with the data, if not by directly using it, citizen scientists can use our app and contribute to the field data NASA already has. For example, hikers or outdoor enthusiasts in the Olympic mountains of Washington State can use their phones to take pictures when they find endangered birds and post them, send data of snowpack density or temperature, or phones can record salmon underwater for population count and observation of infections.
Likewise, phytoplankton data from the NAAMES research project can be combined with field data sea turtle population to project food supplies (jellyfish) of endangered sea turtles and possible food shortages during a season.
Because we live in Los Ángeles, we also looked into the Monarch Butterfly. The monarchs have declined 90% in population in the that 20 years. A large reason of their decline is habitat loss. But because a large portion of their habitat is milkweed and can be planted in urban communities, and because it is hard to determine individual plant species from satellite and aerial data, field data from citizen scientists can bridge the gap and show how urban tree/shrub growth is correlated with Monarch Butterfly populations.
Hackathon Journey
At our elementary school, we were learning about Climate Change and its impact on life around the world. We were interested about how to save endangered animals so we decided to make a quick scratch game about why each animal is endangered and some facts about them. We also created slides and added information about our project and some of the endangered animals. We did research about everyday tasks we could do to make impacts on endangered species, especially those local to us.
We had a great time exploring this topic and learning about endangered animals. This project has made us realize how much we can affect the lives of other species. We believe that the more people interested and involved in helping the world become a better place for all living things, the better off the world will be.
One thing that we learned from last year was to start our project with a simple idea and continue to build on it. In this case, we started with a game to raise awareness about endangered species, using satellite and aerial photos. We then expanded on that idea to create a personalized user experience (AR features, similar to Pokémon) and a citizen science data library that can be used with other data for more cohesive data findings.
The biggest problem that we had was not having enough time to do everything that we wanted for this project, if we could, we would have added a lot more dots and information to the scratch game, including some extinct species. This is our second year doing the NASA space apps challenge and we can’t wait to participate again next year!
Lastly, we would like to thank our instructors, Hunter, Edmund Lu, Brandon Zhang, and Coco Nie.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?q=hippopotamus&sxsrf=ALiCzsbHzYnURF7YhIkMkpSJG-qeMjh8ug:1664661843230&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5ztjOhMD6AhXBK0QIHWY7CacQ_AUoAXoECAMQAw&biw=1280&bih=601&dpr=1.5#imgrc=WMlDqpJxOR2xDM.
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pngitem.com/middle/TihiRbw_world-map-satellite-png-transparent-png/.
Earth Science Data Systems, N. A. S. A. (n.d.). Earthdata. NASA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/
NASA. (n.d.). ASDC. NASA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/project/NAAMES
NASA. (n.d.). Olympic mountains ground validation experiment (Olympex). NASA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/home/field-campaigns/olympex
National Geographic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
Red panda. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?q=red+panda&sxsrf=ALiCzsYT9SWm88sLPugUBhv8hU0Pq7xkQw:1664660218532&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih-PzH_r_6AhWkKkQIHRibBtoQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1280&bih=601&dpr=1.5#imgrc=5WLHjApPKgoDqM.
Wild tiger. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=Zp5qEj4V&id=9A9B6210ED1528D8C856F052E01D227DBD79E3F6&thid=OIP.Zp5qEj4VOiir9HxoxfHqVAHaFG&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.treehugger.com%2fthmb%2fb4MrGn5sp2hGmCEFUGNd-v4G5eQ%3d%2f3051x2100%2ffilters%3afill(auto%2c1)%2f__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__mnn__images__2016__04__wild-tiger-india-01-1db6452780c8484babaa7a0f777bf555.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.669e6a123e153a28abf47c68c5f1ea54%3frik%3d9uN5vX0iHeBS8A%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=2100&expw=3051&q=tiger%27s+habitat&simid=608013493803178478&FORM=IRPRST&ck=DF90995AE6E25DA9742A08D596C1234B&selectedIndex=2&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0.
World Map Satellite PNG, transparent PNG , transparent PNG image - pngitem. PNGitem.com. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.pngitem.com/middle/TihiRbw_world-map-satellite-png-transparent-png/
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Giant Panda. WWF. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Hippopotamus. WWF. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/hippopotamus
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Polar Bear. WWF. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/polar-bear
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Sea turtle. WWF. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sea-turtle
World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). Tiger. WWF. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger
All the links we used for our scratch game is from natural geographic
Tags
#endangered, #animals, #saving, #lives