Citizen science, also known as community or participatory science, offers volunteers opportunities to collect, analyze, and share data about the natural world, making it available for resource managers and research projects conducted by professional scientists. This includes contributing to a variety of surveys, inventories, and studies where the data collected conforms to established protocols and is submitted for research purposes to recognized scientific organizations. In addition to contributing to scientific projects of global importance, citizen science activities can enhance your understanding and appreciation of the plants, animals, and natural environment that surround us.
You and your family members can become a citizen scientist in your own backyard by observing nature and sharing your results with programs like these:
iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/ ) is an international program that supports the scientific study of biodiversity by allowing volunteers to record, share, identify, and organize observations of organisms in the natural world. Download their free app, use it to observe and identify plants and animals, and upload your data to their website. You’ll learn at the same time: using iNaturalist will enhance your ability to recognize the plants and animals around you.
The free eBird app https://ebird.org/home allows you to share your observations and identifications of birds by uploading them to a database maintained by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, which uses the information to power data-driven approaches to avian science, conservation, and education.
Each winter, Project FeederWatch https://feederwatch.org/ enlists volunteers to monitor bird activity around their backyard feeders and yards and submit their findings to help scientists studying bird distribution and abundance throughout the United States.
Every year for four days in February during the Backyard Bird Count https://www.birdcount.org/ , volunteers count and identify all the birds they can find and submit their data to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology using the Merlin https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ or eBird apps. These observations help scientists better understand the distribution of bird populations across the world before the beginning of their annual spring migration.
Nature’s Notebook https://www.usanpn.org/nn enables the study of phenology, the timing of life cycle phases in plants and animals. Changes in plant and animal phenology offer some of the most sensitive evidence of the effects of climate change. Volunteers choose plants and animals from the Nature’s Notebook monitoring list, record weekly observations of plant growth (for instance budbreak, leaf size, or fruit) and/or animal behavior (like feeding, mating, raising young), and upload their data to Nature’s Notebook, which includes them in an online database run by the USA National Phenology Network https://www.usanpn.org/.
Project Budburst https://budburst.org/ focuses on the flowering stages of plants and their interactions with pollinators. You can enjoy the beauty of nature while monitoring plant life cycles and plant/animal interactions. By sharing your data, you can help scientists track the effects of climate change on plants and insects.
Tree Snap https://treesnap.org/ : help scientists study the effects of invasive pests and disease by locating and tagging trees using the TreeSnap app. Scientists will use your data to identify healthy, resilient trees for research projects that study genetic diversity and help build better tree-breeding programs.
Using the Globe Observer app https://observer.globe.gov/about/get-the-app , volunteers for the Globe Program https://www.globe.gov/ make environmental observations of things like clouds, land cover, mosquito habitat, and tree height. Comparing these observations with data gathered by NASA’s satellites helps scientists to better understand Earth and the global environment.
Volunteers for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow, and Hail Network https://www.cocorahs.org/ measure precipitation worldwide. By submitting backyard precipitation measures, they help scientists refine their analysis of where and how much precipitation falls in different microhabitats.
Monarch butterflies are seriously endangered by habitat loss. Monarch Watch https://monarchwatch.org/ provides help by enabling volunteers to raise, mark, and monitor monarchs while also contributing data to scientific studies of their ecology.