256 Roman et al.: Monitoring Young Tree Survival with Citizen Scientists port urban natural resource stewardship (Silva and Krasny 2014). The study begins with a review of the program’s origins, purpose, and opera- tions, and a background on research collabora- tions. Next, the authors discuss recent efforts to enhance the program through mobile data col- lection and data quality assessments. The case study concludes with lessons learned to provide guidance to other urban forestry practitioners and researchers considering starting or enhanc- ing a citizen science program. These findings are also relevant to practitioner-driven citizen science projects more broadly, particularly with respect to adapting data collection systems, pro- moting data quality, and fostering partnerships. BACKGROUND Street Tree Programs at PHS PHS is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1827, with a mission to “[connect] people with horticul- ture and together we create beautiful, healthy, and sustainable communities.” PHS is based in Philadel- phia, PA, and works in that city and the surrounding counties. Tree Tenders, founded in 1993, is a volun- teer urban tree planting and stewardship program and is a centerpiece of PHS’s community engage- ment. Out of 122 current staff, 3 full-time staff work on Tree Tenders, with occasional part-time interns. PHS personnel educate residents about the impor- tance of increasing urban tree canopy, and teach them how to plant, prune, water, and otherwise maintain trees. Residents who have taken a nine- hour course (over two or three sessions) on these topics are considered official PHS Tree Tenders. Over 5,000 people in the Philadelphia area have graduated from the program over the past 25 years. Tree Tenders has a decentralized structure, working with neighborhood groups to plant trees. Residents serve as Tree Tenders group leaders and run their groups semi-autonomously. Within Philadelphia, there are currently 32 Tree Tenders groups. In advance of each autumn and spring planting season, Tree Tenders group leaders sub- mit lists of potential tree planting locations to PHS staff; these locations are produced through neighborhood-level outreach from each group. PHS then distributes trees to Tree Tenders groups, who plant the trees with their neighbors. Over ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture the past three years, 800–1,000 trees have been planted annually in Philadelphia. Most (roughly 90%) of these are street trees. In 2000, Tree Tenders switched to bare-root trees, instead of balled-and- burlapped stock, because of lower per-tree costs as well as less bodily strain for volunteer planters and PHS staff. In addition, research shows that bare root planting stock can have similar post-planting survival and growth to balled-and-burlapped trees (Buckstrup and Bassuk 2003; Jack-Scott 2012). The Tree Checkers program was launched in 2011 to further engage Tree Tenders in the summer months, encourage ongoing steward- ship and community engagement, and produce lists of dead trees that need to be replaced. Tree Checkers is a citizen science program in which volunteers collect data on recently planted tree survival, growth, crown vigor, and stewardship. Tree Checkers was based on a similar volunteer young tree monitoring program run by Friends of Trees (Portland, Oregon, U.S.), as presented at the 2010 Partners in Community Forestry con- ference in Philadelphia. The emergence of Tree Checkers is therefore an example of knowledge transfer through urban forestry communities of practice (Campbell et al. 2016). Another exam- ple of urban forestry professionals adopting and modifying programs from peer organizations is the spread of yard tree giveaway programs in the northeastern United States (Nguyen et al. 2017). In addition to data collection, individuals are expected to engage with their neighbors to pro- mote stewardship. The Tree Checkers program is structured so that the citizen scientists oper- ate within their Tree Tenders group turf—that is, within their own neighborhoods—to monitor the trees their group planted. Promoting stewardship through community engagement was considered the highest priority for Tree Checkers during early years of the program; less emphasis was placed on data collection to report program outcomes. For the property adjacent to every tree, partici- pants were asked to talk to the resident about proper techniques for watering, mulching, stak- ing, weeding, and other tree and site care con- cerns. If nobody answered the door, volunteers left a “Tree Check-Up Report” with notes as to how the tree was faring and suggestions for improved maintenance. Specifically, this “report card” had
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