Category: Ecology & Environment

Winter is here! Check out more winter weather themed citizen science projects at Scistarter. You know what the atmosphere is. But have you heard of the cryosphere? No, it’s not a giant frozen ice-cream sphere, if that’s what you’re thinking. (That’s not what you were thinking? Never mind then!) The cryosphere, as Wikipedia most sagely […]

Baby, it’s cold outside! To mark the first day of winter on December 21st, the SciStarter team put together this list of wintery Citizen Science projects. We bet you’ll feel warm and fuzzy inside when you participate. Counting Weddell Seals in Antarctica Even if your local winter weather does not include ice and snow, you […]

The monarch butterfly is a remarkable species.  Each year these insects migrate in a similar pattern to birds from colder to warmer climates as the seasons change, often returning to the same overwintering sites every year.  Unlike birds, however, no single monarch lives long enough to make the whole migration, so the journey occurs across […]

When you consider the field of citizen science you probably think of it as something you do by collecting data, taking pictures, finding plants or animals, or uploading sightings. There’s a new form of citizen science emerging called a “thought experiment.” You may be familiar with thought experiments like that of “Schrödinger’s Cat” or Einstein’s […]

Dig into even more Thanksgiving projects with your friends and family! Imagine: After months of treacherous sailing across the open ocean, skirting coral reefs and rocky shores, you alight upon lush tropical islands greeted by enticing aromas, unknown species, and a symphony of bird song… Four years into her circumnavigation of the globe, the HMS […]

Drag your bones toward even more Halloween-themed citizen science! We know from basic ecology that organisms are adapted to their environment, and where certain organisms live should fall along a gradient of critical environmental factors such as moisture, temperature, nutrient availability, or substrate. How these factors impact diversity and distribution are questions that we could […]

Drag your bones toward more Halloween-themed citizen science.  The snapper, the groper and the emperor—these are not synonyms for that nasty blind date you landed last month, nor do they form the lineup for a cast of Halloween characters. These are fish. In particular they are demersal species, which refers to a type of fish […]

If you ever asked me how many kinds of spiders were there in the world, I would say there are two that I know of. The one with thin long legs that inhabit the walls of my house and keep me up at night, and the enormous one with hairy legs that inhabit theater screens […]

Drag your bones toward more Halloween-themed citizen science. Growing up in the last green valley, I didn’t think too much about light pollution. We always brought flashlights trick-or-treating, and I can remember being afraid to go outside after sunset for fear of what could be hiding in the dark; we could always see the stars. […]

Drag your bones on over to our favorite, spooky research projects just in time for Halloween. Where is my Spider? Share your photos of spiders. When we understand where spiders are living today, we will be better able to predict what may happen to spiders and agriculture in the future. Get started!   Zombee Watch […]