Urban Nature Observatory
Urban Nature Observatory is a community-owned network of self-built environmental sensors for urban green spaces. Data from sensors is stored and managed locally by the community, while "data telescopes" in the field visualise the collected insights, helping people understand the health of their local nature.
At the Nunhead Cemetery Late event we showed our first prototype, the Sky Colour Periscope, which is part of our pilot. Before the event we took photos of the sky every hour in one particular spot in the cemetery. The camera automatically downsizes the photos to 3 by 3 pixels, collecting a palette of colours from the sky.
The Periscope has a small opening where visitors can see a screen that shows the 3 by 3 pixel image of the sky. With dials on the left and the right of the periscope visitors are invited to flick through the images and look at the colours of the sky from the previous hours and days. Even though the images were reduced to only 9 pixels, participants could extract some interesting information. For example, some saw the growing canopy of the trees by looking at the green overtaking the blue pixels, some saw the change in the length of day by comparing the same hour in the evenings with different days, some also noticed the recent unsettled and changeable weather alternating between wind, rain and glaring sunshine.
We gave visitors a map of Nunhead cemetery as well as a sheet of stickers. The stickers depict tools such as a microphone and a thermometer, animals such as a squirrel and a stag beetle and senses such as touch and smell. We asked visitors to use the stickers to mark focal points on the map where they would place environmental sensors for monitoring wildlife in the cemetery. The workshop explored questions around what environmental data we should collect in our neighbourhood, how we can visualise it to share with others, and how we can use it to become more active, ecological citizens.
Within the 3 hours of the event we received over 50 responses, with inputs ranging from tracking human activity, recording bird song, tracking hedgehogs, looking at the cemetery at night, mosses and lichen growing on the grave stones, and bats flying through the site. It was amazing to see how willing the local people are to tell their stories and how eager they are to get involved in the project when doing something that is so close to where they live.