Category: Ecology & Environment

Water: We can’t live without it. Photo: USFWS Water is one of our most precious natural resources, so it’s not surprising that there are hundreds of scientists in need of your help to keep an eye on rivers, streams, lakes, oceans, and taps.  Below, our editors highlight five water monitoring projects. You can find hundreds […]

Going out of your way to attract mosquitoes seems like the last thing anyone would want to do, but that is exactly what the national Invasive Mosquito Project is hoping volunteers will do in the name of public health. Managed through the United States Department of Agriculture, the Invasive Mosquito Project aims to track the spread of […]

Walking through Purisima Creek Redwoods Reserve in northern California, I am the paparazzi of Western sword ferns (Polystichum munitum). When I find one, I stop and click, click, click my smartphone photos and then approach boldly for a closer look. Are new leaves emerging as curled fronds or fiddleheads? Are there round spots called sori—reproductive […]

Photo: NPS Celebrate the National Parks with Citizen Science On August 25, the United States National Park Service turns 100! The park system provides many excellent citizen science opportunities to visitors. Below, you’ll find five great national park projects. Find even more projects with the SciStarter Global Project Finder. Cheers! The SciStarter Team

A recent article in the New York Times highlights the way urban environments are affecting evolution in a variety of species. From European blackbirds with high-pitched calls to beat the sound of traffic to spiders adapted to build their webs closer to light poles, the dynamic and harsh urban environment is changing our biodiversity. Citizen scientists are […]

by Jennifer Cutraro By now, you’ve surely seen, heard about, or even joined the hordes of people wandering about outdoors,  phones held right in front of their faces. In the two weeks since Pokémon Go’s release, there’s been much ado about the game: how it gets people outdoors, how it promotes physical activity, how it’s […]

Dive into Shark Week with SciStarter It’s shark week! Celebrate by getting involved in one of the many citizen science projects that study and protect sharks. Find even more projects with the  SciStarter Global Project Finder. Cheers! The SciStarter Team

In Arizona and the surrounding Southwestern United States, over 400 people are participating in a nine-year ongoing game of tag. But these folks are not tagging each other. They’re actually romping about in meadows with small nets, hoping to catch and tag a Monarch butterfly. In 2003 Chris Kline began the Southwest Monarch Study in order to […]

Photo: Wendy Caldwell This week we celebrate National Pollinator Week, in honor of the bees, butterflies, beetles, and other animals that provide essential services to ecosystems and agricultural lands everywhere. Citizen science is at the forefront of pollinator research, and below we highlight six projects that you can join to help study and protect pollinators. […]

Citizen scientists in Wisconsin are helping bat conservation efforts by conducting night time acoustic monitoring using special handheld bat detectors