Cades Cove Firefly Survey
2024-06-24 19:00 - 23:00 (America/New_York)
Join us to survey fireflies in Cades Cove on June 24th from 7pm to 11pm EST, meeting at the Cades Cove Ranger Station. There are 19 species of fireflies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park! Volunteers will assist DLiA staff document firefly species in Cades Cove for the Smokies All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory.

This event will require volunteers to walk/hike through the fields in Cades Cove, after dark. No flashlights will be used when documenting and recording activity. No prior experience is required and families are welcome, although this volunteer activity is not recommended for children under the age of 14.

Questions? Email our volunteer coordinator, Jaimie Matzko, jaimie@dlia.org

Registration is now full!

Get the iNaturalist app.

Download the app. Log in. Try it out.

ANDROID

iOS

Cherokee Dam BioBlitz
2024-06-28 18:00 - 2024-06-29 12:00
Free, family friendly opportunity to learn about local animals and plants while contributing to science. Join Discover Life in America and the Tennessee Valley Authority at Cherokee Dam Park-Picnic Area in Jefferson City!

Two chances to ‘blitz!

Friday, June 28th from 6pm to 10pm: Join us for an evening of discoveries…we will continue in the dark, as we will set up a black light to monitor insect populations!

Saturday, June 29th from 8am to 12pm: The morning is a great time to look for birds and we will continue to look for other flora and fauna throughout the morning!

Register Here

Where?

Cherokee Dam Park-Picnic area

1015 Tva Pkwy, Jefferson City, TN 37760

What’s a bioblitz?

During a bioblitz, volunteers help document as many kinds of animals, plants, and other organisms as we can find in a specific area. It’s also an opportunity for you to be a community scientist, gathering real scientific data, while also learning about the local flora and fauna living around you. We will be walking the trails, looking for bugs, flowers, salamanders, and other living organisms. We’ll photograph them with our phones and post pictures to our iNaturalist project. We’ll have experts on hand to guide small groups point out interesting facts about the organisms we see, and teach you how to use the iNaturalist app.

What will we be doing?

Walking the trails, looking for bugs, flowers, salamanders, and anything else we can find. We’ll photograph them with our phones and post pictures to our iNaturalist project. It’ll be a fun morning of outdoor time in a gorgeous natural space and we’ll have experts on hand to guide small groups around the trail and point out interesting facts about the organisms we see.

Afterward you can see what kind of organisms we found by visiting the project on iNaturalist, which will be left up indefinitely. We encourage you to revisit the Loyston Point trails and post what you find! Making iNaturalist observations helps TVA know what’s out there so they can better manage and protect these public lands.

Before the event

Download iNaturalist to your phone (it’s free!)

Follow prompts in the app to create an iNaturalist account

Bring water and some snacks (we’ll also provide water)

Wear weather-appropriate clothing and sturdy shoes for hiking

Get the iNaturalist app.

Download the app. Log in. Try it out.

ANDROID

iOS

Free

2025 Park Science Colloquium
2025-03-06 09:00 - 16:00
This annual symposium showcases the research happening in and around the Great Smoky Mountains. Topics are wide-ranging, from weather and climate to zoology, botany, geology, conservation, and more! Talks are meant to be engaging to a broad audience and recorded to YouTube. All are welcome to attend this free virtual event! Register at the link below to receive a Zoom link.

2025 Line-Up

Here’s the most up-to-date version of the 2025 schedule and abstracts.

2025 Colloquium schedule & abstracts v4Download

Registration: Registration is free! Register here to receive a Zoom link over email. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions after each talk. Speakers DO NOT need to register. You’ll receive a Zoom link via email.

Check out talks from previous years

Information for presenters

Conference format: The Colloquium will be held virtually via Zoom’s Webinar platform. Presenters will be set as “panelists” on the Webinar, meaning that they can do most of the normal functions of a Zoom Meeting (share video, audio, and screen). Audience members will be able to ask questions and we will help manage questions. We’ll send presenters more information about what to expect closer to the colloquium.

Time slots: Presentation slots will be around 20 minutes (including time for questions). We will send you a finalized schedule close to the event and will provide more details about the Q&A after each talk.

Presentation format: Slide decks can be in any format (speakers will share their screen via Zoom), however we recommend PowerPoint, PDF, Google Slides or Keynote in wide-format (16:9).

Know your audience: Please note that many in the audience will have advanced degrees, but few will have advanced degrees in your topic, so plan to provide a bit of explanation of technical jargon and stay away from acronyms.

Recording presentations: We plan to record presentations and upload them publicly to our YouTube channel as we’ve done the past few years.
