February 19th 2019, marks the 2 year anniversary of astrobotany.com.
I’d just like to take this moment to observe some of the accomplishments we have made as a website and community since last February. I’m also going to briefly outline our focus for 2019 through early 2020.
by the numbers
This year saw 6,440 unique visitors to astrobotany.com, a 48% increase in web traffic compared to our first year.
We fell just short of lifetime 10K: we’ve had 9,757 unique visitors since the site began.
- 781 subscribers to the /r/astrobotany subreddit
- 276 following our facebook page
- 239 instagram followers
- 198 twitter followers
- 132 subscribers to the astrobotany YouTube channel
projects and collaborations of 2018-19
- Carthage College Astrobiology Course
- First Lego League
- BTCI Outreach
- Wisconsin Science Festival
- Games in Astrobotany Workshop
- NASA GeneLab TOAST Database
- The Astrobotany Show
- The Astrobotany Podcast
2019-2020 is the year of education
This year, astrobotany.com will be placing an emphasis on astrobiology education. We’ll be doing this a number of ways
- we’re continuing to collaborate with educators in the Madison, WI area to perfect lesson plans to be used in classroom settings
- we’re aiming to help develop coursework for 1-2 educational programs
- we’re reaching out to our connections in industry and academia to bring the botany and spaceflight communities closer together to collaborate on citizen science
- we’re making content that appeals to younger and non-traditional audiences using a diverse media portfolio
I’m extremely proud of how the site has grown since it first started and I’m grateful for the support we’ve received all over the globe.
As a public resource for an emerging scientific discipline, I hope astrobotany.com can set an example for how democratization of a science can be achieved through free flow of information, data accessibility, and good old fashioned graphic design.
Let’s grow plants in space.
Kai Rasmussen