Category: Ecology & Environment

The equinox is upon us. Budding trees and baby birds will soon greet us. As the weather gets warmer, be ready to Spring into action with these five springtime citizen science projects! Project BudBurst Help scientists understand the impacts of global climate change! Report data on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants […]

Citizen scientists can help ID the progression of bacterial infection in plant cells by determining how “clumpy” plant cell images are. Explore the microbiome around and inside you with these citizen science projects! The language on the Clumpy homepage might be considered a challenge for the average citizen scientist: “The model plant-pathogen system comprising the […]

Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Environmental Behaviors Project seeks help in sorting and ranking environmental stewardship. Many citizen science projects have been very successful in collecting high-quality scientific data through the participation of citizen scientists. However, less emphasis has been placed on documenting changes to citizen scientists themselves. In particular, many projects hope participants will increase their environmental […]

Public Lab’s DIY spectrometry kit makes it possible for citizen scientists to do their own spectrometric analysis at home. Come to your senses! SciStarter has curated a list of citizen science projects for all five senses.   Spectrometry. Listen to yourself say it out loud. Admit it. It sounds cool just to say “spectrometry.”(Whoa you […]

The Field Photo Library project helps scientists document changes in landscape by sharing crowdsourced and archived field photos from all over the world. Find more citizen science projects for all five senses on SciStarter. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what value does “any old geo-tagged photo” hold for a scientist? […]

The non-profit Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) previously won a Knight News Challenge in 2011 and received $500,000 to fund a tool kit and online community for citizen-based, grassroots data gathering and research. The second Knight News Challenge the group won, a $350,000 Knight award focused on health data, will allow the group […]

Using Citizen Science Weather Data Collection with CoCoRaHS to Meet Common Core and Next Generation Teaching Standards Grades: 2nd-6th Grades Description: The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) is hosted by the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. It is a network of citizen scientists and classrooms (K-12) that participate in a […]

Is your friend or family member an ornithologist, a conservationist, or a general appreciator of the environment? How about a Baltimore Orioles or Philadelphia Eagles fan?  Stanford Cardinal? Consider adopting a bird through Audubon’s gift program! (Orioles, eagles, and cardinals among a number of other birds are all available for adoption). For $30, through the […]

If you’re looking for more projects for the holiday season, we’ve got 12 Days of Citizen Science for you! “On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…” birds! Partridges, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, golden rings (pheasants), geese and swans inhabit this festival folk classic celebrating food and merriment. Seabirds, […]

If you’re looking for more projects for the holiday season, we’ve got 12 Days of Citizen Science for you! Don’t forget to check out the public radio segment about Tiny Terrors on WHYY’s The Pulse! The Grinch is back and this time in the form of a tiny insect invader. Meanwhile, scientists are looking for […]