A Celebration of Stories and Science from The Spark Bird Project
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83838546881?pwd=pcIiraFBbnJm4LodFmy0v93UaOx305.1
Meeting ID: 838 3854 6881
Passcode: 283424
Join RTPI and BWD Magazine (Bird Watcher’s Digest) to learn more about The Spark Bird Project from founder Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., the ongoing community science initiative gathering, sharing, and studying the stories of people’s passion for birds! Connect with fellow bird enthusiasts to learn more about the project, enjoy spark bird stories, and get an update on what we are discovering from over 400 spark birders and growing.
Jen Lodi-Smith will be joining us via Zoom on March 13 at 1 pm. (a 40-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes for questions/comments). Seating and a viewing screen will be set up in the Green Gallery, and the public may speak with Jen in real time during the presentation. Viewers may also engage with the Zoom at home. Light refreshments will be available in the RTPI lobby.
What is the Spark Bird Project?
The Spark Bird Project is an ongoing participatory community social science initiative designed to gather, share, and study the stories of people’s passion for birds while gaining scientific insights into a critical piece in the ecology of birds: birders themselves. The Spark Bird Project leverages the tools of social science to study spark bird stories, with research findings going directly back to community partners to inform their efforts towards engaging people in birding. The knowledge gained from The Spark Bird Project helps to craft inclusive experiences that can facilitate spark bird moments for the benefit of the birding community, the new birder, the economy, and – most importantly – the birds and our world! By understanding what hooks and sustains birders, The Spark Bird Project helps grow the constituency of individuals creatively working to conserve and protect our planet. The Spark Bird Project also helps birders better understand each other by sharing spark bird stories publicly at https://www.spark-bird.org/stories and through The Spark Bird Podcast.
What was Roger Tory Peterson’s spark bird moment?
Roger Tory Peterson’s interest in nature began at an early age. In the seventh grade, Roger and some other boys spotted a seemingly lifeless clump of brown feathers on a tree while hiking Swede Hill. The boys thought the resting Northern Flicker was dead, but when they touched it, the bird startled and “burst into color”: displaying its golden wings and red on the back of its head as it flew away. This encounter, where a suspected dead bird fluttered to life before his eyes, remained forever burned in Roger Tory Peterson’s mind as the moment his lifelong passion for birds began.
About the Host
Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., the founder and director of The Spark Bird Project, is a Professor of Psychology at Canisius University and scholar-in-residence with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Jenn has been using mixed methods to longitudinally study identity development for over 20 years, most recently in the context of the transformative power of spark bird experiences. She serves as secretary/treasurer for the Association for Research in Personality, associate editor of the Journal of Personality, on the board of Birds on the Niagara, and mentors the WNY Young Birders Club.
