The Seed Eater project seeks to enthuse citizens about the natural world, and to gather information about tree species location and seed data around the globe as part of a pilot study into seed terminal velocity. The project has two aims: (1) To increase knowledge of and access to the interface of computing and mathematics with biology, by developing teachers’ resources and activities for school-aged children. (2) To create and develop a dataset of terminal velocity of wind-dispersed seeds. For more information, see btle.york.ac.uk/seedeater.

Giving feedback on the resources provided by this project is entirely voluntary; it is up to you to decide whether to take part. By choosing to fill in this form (5-10 minutes), you are giving consent for the storage of your anonymous feedback by the research group. A GDPR-compliant privacy notice is available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1auln6mgFU5Wbq4hK80uNfbvBr3FoA_nwo7T8A5Hcbt8. You may optionally provide contact details to be contacted for further discussion; these details will only be accessible by the research leader. You will not be identified in any research outputs from this study at any time, unless permission is granted at a later date as appropriate (e.g. in order to be given credit if you become a contributor and co-author).

Feedback will be used to update, develop and extend the teaching resources offered through the Seed Eater project. Study findings will be disseminated in summarized and anonymized forms only, via one or more journal articles, conference presentations and through existing professional networks such as Finding Ada and the Raspberry Pi Foundation magazines and forums. If you are not happy for your data to be used in this way, please do not submit this form.

If you have any questions about the study, please contact Dr Pen Holland (pen.holland@york.ac.uk) in the first instance. You may also contact the Biology Ethics Committee (biol-ethics@york.ac.uk) if you have concerns about data privacy or processing, or other ethical issues. If you are still dissatisfied, please contact the University’s Acting Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@york.ac.uk.

If you are unhappy with the way in which the University has handled your personal data, you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. For information on reporting a concern to the Information Commissioner’s Office, see www.ico.org.uk/concerns.  

The research team is led by Dr. Pen Holland (Department of Biology, University of York, UK), pen.holland@york.ac.uk, with collaborators including Dr Sarah Wyse (Bio-Protection Unit, Lincoln University, New Zealand) and undergraduate researchers (Department of Biology, University of York, UK).

This survey has been approved by the University of York Biology Ethics Committee (23rd September 2019).