For three days this week, University High School became a gathering place for conservation professionals from across the Midwest as the school hosted the Midwest Motus Partners Technical Workshop, presented in collaboration with the American Bird Conservancy and the Sam Shine Foundation.
The workshop brought 20 adult learners from six states to campus for classroom instruction and hands-on work in University’s Habitat for Community Learning. Participants represented organizations including Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation, the Nature Conservancy, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis Zoo, Indiana Audubon Society, Sycamore Land Trust, Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, Akron Zoo, IU Kokomo, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Led by Adam Smith, Motus Director for the American Bird Conservancy, and Garrett Rhyne, Southeast Motus Coordinator, and sponsored by the Sam Shine Foundation, the workshop gave participants an opportunity to learn about Motus technology and its use in wildlife research and conservation.
And University was more than simply the location for the workshop. As part of the three-day event, a new Motus wildlife tracking station became operational in University’s Habitat for Community Learning, giving both researchers and University students a new way to participate in real-world conservation science.
What is Motus?
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System is an international collaborative research network that uses radio telemetry to track the movements of small migratory animals, including birds, bats, and even insects.
The name Motus comes from the Latin word for “movement.” Researchers attach tiny radio transmitters to animals, and Motus stations positioned throughout the Western Hemisphere listen for their unique signals as they pass nearby. The detections are collected and used to help scientists better understand where animals travel, how quickly they migrate, where they stop along the way, and which habitats may be especially important to their survival.
The scale of the project is significant. Motus stations stretch from the Arctic into southern South America, creating a network that allows researchers to follow movements that would have been nearly impossible to study just a few years ago.
University’s new station will now become part of that network.
For Assistant Head of School Stacey Summitt-Mann, who participated in the workshop, that makes the station a natural extension of the work already happening in the Habitat for Community Learning.
“Our MOTUS station is an exciting addition to the Habitat for Community Learning at University! We are so grateful for our community partners who made this happen. Having a MOTUS station is an extension of our core value of stewardship. It provides us the opportunity participate in current science research of migratory animals like birds, bats and butterflies. It enables our students to engage in hands-on learning, to inspire the next generation of conservationists, and overall to appreciate the natural world around us.”
Bringing the Science to Students
Students got their own introduction to the project during Community Meeting, when Alan Pursell of the Sam Shine Foundation explained the technology, the research it makes possible, and the role University students could play in it.
Pursell described Motus as a “massive Western Hemisphere scale decentralized science project” and explained how advances in miniaturized radio transmitters are allowing researchers to study the movements of animals that previously were simply too small to track effectively.
He also introduced students to some of the newest possibilities for the technology, including tiny tags that can be used to study monarch butterfly migration. Most importantly, he invited University students to become participants in the research themselves, potentially helping capture and tag monarchs and contributing data that can improve scientists’ understanding of migration ecology.
Watch Alan Pursell’s full Community Meeting presentation.
That invitation continued outside the classroom. During the station installation, 18 students and four faculty members joined workshop participants in the Habitat for Community Learning, giving students the chance to talk directly with scientists and conservation professionals and see the technology being installed on their own campus.
The University station is designed to detect tagged animals that pass within its range, with the information ultimately becoming part of the larger Motus research network. During his presentation, Pursell told students that stations like University’s can detect signals from approximately five to seven miles away.
For University students, that means the Habitat for Community Learning has become more than a place to study the natural world around them. It is now part of a much larger scientific effort to understand it.
And, as Summitt-Mann points out, it creates something particularly valuable for students: the opportunity not just to learn about science, but to participate in science that is happening right now.