Climate & Weather

By 1900, Trumpeter Swans were extirpated from their nesting and wintering areas in Central and Eastern North America. Their historic migrations to southerly wintering sites were totally destroyed. In recent decades wild nesting populations of Trumpeters have been successfully restored in several northerly states and Ontario. Most swans now winter near their northern breeding areas, but an unknown number are pioneering southward where they are beginning to establish use of more southerly wintering sites.

Little is known regarding the numbers and groupings of southward migrants, the location and characteristics of the sites they are pioneering, the duration of use, or problems they may be encountering. By providing information through Trumpeter Watch, observers can help document the changing distribution of wintering Trumpeter Swans and help identify potential new southerly wintering sites.

Journey North engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. K-12 students share their own field observations with classmates across North America. They track the coming of spring through the migration patterns of monarch butterflies, robins, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, gray whales, bald eagles— and other birds and mammals; the budding of plants; changing sunlight; and other natural events. Find migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context. Widely considered a best-practices model for education, Journey North is the nation's premiere "citizen science" project for children. The general public is welcome to participate.

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is offering a new online
course for educators focused on its successful citizen science program – *PBB
- 501 Project BudBurst: Introduction to Plant Phenology and Climate Change.
* This inaugural offering is *being offered at no charge *to K-12 educators
and is suited for both formal and informal educational settings. This
online course provides all needed information to implement Project BudBurst
(www.budburst.org) in the classroom and engage your students in a national
program by learning more about plants and climate change at a local level.

Act now and be part of the first online course from The BudBurst Academy
that begins on February 15 and take advantage of the *registration fee
being waived*.

Involvement in Project BudBurst will give students valuable experience
collecting data and will give them the opportunity to make meaningful
contributions to ongoing scientific research where scientists are very
interested in the observations students across the county are making.

This professional development course will provide you with detailed
information on Project BudBurst and how to participate including how to
select your plants and make observations, suggestions for structuring your
classroom involvement, classroom activities to engage your students in
making observations, analyzing data, as well as forming a community with
other K-12 educators within Project BudBurst.

Participants in PBB - 501 can sign up for optional graduate level
continuing education credits from Colorado School of Mines. The fee for 2
credits is $90.00

More information can be found at www.budburst.org/academy

Researchers at the Trumpeter Swan Society need volunteers to report their sightings of Trumpeter Swans in the Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain regions.

Why? By 1900 Trumpeter Swans were extirpated from their nesting and wintering areas in Central and Eastern North America. Their historic migrations to southerly wintering sites were totally destroyed. In recent decades wild nesting populations of Trumpeters have been successfully restored in several northerly states and Ontario. An unknown number are pioneering southward where they are beginning to establish use of more southerly wintering sites. Little is known regarding the numbers and groupings of southward migrants, the location and characteristics of the sites they are pioneering, the duration of use, or problems they may be encountering.

By providing information through Trumpeter Watch, observers can help document the changing distribution of wintering Trumpeter Swans and help increase this vulnerable swan population.

The project is organized by the Trumpeter Swan Society: http://www.trumpeterswansociety.org.

Now's the time to set up your American Kestrel nest box! This bird's population is experiencing long-term declines in North America, and existing data are insufficient for understanding the causes. The American Kestrel Partnership is an international research network designed to generate data, models, and conservation plans for kestrel habitat and populations at large spatial scales. The Partnership unites the data-generating capacity of citizen scientists with the data-analysis expertise of professional scientists by promoting research collaboration among citizen scientists, universities, government agencies, conservation organizations, schools, and businesses. The Partnership also fosters long-term conservation values and appreciation of science by engaging the public with hands-on research experiences.

The Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count (WMTC) is a citizen-science project designed to census the size of these winter colonies. As the name implies, it is conducted over a two-week period around the (American) Thanksgiving weekend in November by a large number of volunteers. The project is coordinated by several individuals including Dennis Frey (professor emeritus, Cal Poly) and Mia Monroe (National Parks Service & Coordinator of California Monarch Campaign, Xerces Society).

If you are a SCUBA diver, we ask that you send us data logged by your dive computer, so we can put it to scientific use! Millions of divers dive all around the world everyday, with state-of-the-art dive computers that log temperature as a function of depth. As a citizen scientist scuba diver, you can help put this information to the use of oceanographers and marine scientists. Send us your dive site location & an export of your dive computer log; or just write up in an email the information you record in your logbook (like surface temperature, bottom temperature, date, time, location, dive computer brand)!

The goal of this project is to channel temperature & location data from divers to scientists. The data collected will be processed by graduate students and will be made available online on our website for anyone to download.

GreenprintMaps presents the urban forest of the Greenprint region – Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, Sutter, and Yuba Counties. Everyone is invited to join us in mapping all of our trees – in parks, on streets, at schools, in parking lots and at home. You can find trees, add trees, ask a question about a tree, and calculate the value of a tree. GreenprintMaps is fun and easy for everyone. Cities can better manage their trees, planners can protect trees, scientists can combat tree pests and diseases, and homeowners can share their tree stories. We hope you’ll help us grow the best regional urban forest in the nation.

Beach WAtchers are volunteers dedicated to protecting Puget Sound through research, education and stewardship. Get 100 hours of university caliber training and craft a volunteer experience to give back 100 hours over two years.

The goal of the Chestnut Mega-Transect Project is to document the current status of American chestnuts along the Appalachian Trail. Using the idea that the Appalachian Trail is really a transect through a unique US ecosystem, TACF trains hikers to identify and count American chestnuts along the Appalachian Trail as divided into approximately 1 miles segments.

Science Hack Day is a 48-hour-all-night event that brings together designers, developers, scientists and other geeks in the same physical space for a brief but intense period of collaboration, hacking, and building 'cool stuff'. By collaborating on focused tasks during this short period, small groups of hackers are capable of producing remarkable results. Some Hack Days have a specific focus. There have already been very successful Music Hack Days and Government Hack Days. It's time for a Hack Day focused on science!

Wherever you are – anywhere in the world – contribute to science by taking a photo of a blank white piece of paper!

Photos are needed on the following dates:

September 17 and 18, 2011
September 23, 2011
November 6, 2011
December 12, 2011
February 4, 2012
March 20, 2012
May 5, 2012
June 20, 2012
August 6, 2012
September 22, 2012
November 5, 2012

Your photo will used to measure how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back from the Earth -- our planet's "albedo." It's one way scientists can monitor how much energy – and heat – is being absorbed by our planet. By contributing to the Albedo Project, you will be providing data that can be used to examine the similarities and differences of reflectivity around the world.

Should grassy surfaces have the same value in Brazil as in Norway? How does clay soil in the southeastern USA differ from sandy desert in the southwestern USA? Is there any difference in urban “hot spots” that can be attributed to latitude?

Individuals, schools, small and large groups can all use these data to help inform activities that are appropriate and effective for their communities. Whether it is maintaining the health of parks and green spaces, or legislating green building codes, there is something each can do. It is the hope of this project to present some of the actions taken, as well as follow their albedo records over time.

We are monitoring butterfly population responses to climate change in North Cascades National Park and Mount Rainier National Park. Please join our effort.

Subalpine meadows in these two National Parks are expected to shrink dramatically due to the effects of climate change, but as of now, the rate and magnitude of this change is unknown. Butterflies make ideal indicator species because they are particularly sensitive to climatic changes, and are relatively easy to identify in the field by scientists and volunteers alike. Trained participants will hike to scenic alpine meadows and help scientists identify and count butterflies along the way.

We need people to document where and when they see Pika (smallest member of the rabbit family), hear pika, or see their hay piles.

If you are out hiking in scree fields, this is a great opportunity to contribute.

Volunteers are needed weekly to collect water samples and other physical climate measurements, then identify species of phytoplankton under a light microscope while watching for potentially harmful algal blooms (HABs) and signs of environmental disturbance in our marine waters.

Redwood Watch needs volunteers to take photographs of redwood trees and submit them to researchers. Your data will help researchers understand where redwoods survive and help track redwood forest migration over time.

If you spot a redwood in a park, your own backyard, or in a botanical garden, snap a picture and submit it online. You can use a digital camera, or the Redwood Watch iPhone application, powered by iNaturalist.

Scientists don't yet know how climate change will impact the redwood forest. By understand where redwoods grow well today, scientists can better predict where the redwood forests of will thrive in the future. Join Redwood Watch and help redwoods survive!

The project is a partnership between the Save the Redwoods League, iNaturalist.org, Google Earth Outreach, and the California Academy of Sciences.

You can help the fight against invasive species by tracking phenophases of invasives through the USA National Phenology Network’s Nature’s Notebook. We need observers to track species such as leafy spurge, purple loosestrife, and tamarisk-species designated as invasive by the USFS, USGS and NatureServe.

Invasive species have infested hundreds of millions of acres across the United States, causing widespread disruption to ecosystems and reducing biodiversity. The invasive species threat is one of the top priorities of the US Forest Service. Knowledge of invasive species phenology can assist managers to better control invasives and predict future spread. The purpose of the Track Invasive Species project is to monitor distribution and phenophases, or life cycle events, of invasive species across the US.

Researchers need YOUR help tracking the presence of American robins (Turdus migratorius) so they can compare your observations with other environmental data, including climate and weather changes.

1. Spot a robin
2. Record the date and location
3. Take note of its activity (what is it doing? what is it eating? is it near other birds?)
Your information will inform researchers at Nature's Notebook, a project of the National Phenology Network.

American robins are arriving in the Colorado Rockies 14 days earlier than they did 30 years ago and have been spotted in parts of Alaska for the first time. Because robins consume a wide variety of foods, an increase or decrease in their population may indicate (or impact) changes in other animal and plant species. It's time for you to get involved and help the planet!

This project is part the Changing Planet series, presented by the National Science Foundation, NBC News, Discover Magazine, Science For Citizens, Planet Forward and The Weather Channel.

Plant a lilac or a dogwood and contribute to a phenology monitoring project over 50 years in existence! While the dogwood will soon be added to the Cloned Plants Project, the root of the USA-NPN Cloned Plants Project is the historic cloned lilac project. Participants plant a lilac clone and record observations of recurring life cycle stages such as leafing and flowering via the USA-NPN webpage. Observations of cloned plants made over large geographical regions are valuable in predicting crop yields and bloom dates of other species, controlling insect and disease infestations, and assisting with monitoring the impact of global climate change.

The cloned lilac available through the USA-NPN is Syringa x chinensis, 'Red Rothomagensis'. The cloned dogwood soon available is Cornus florida, ‘Appalachian Spring’. Generally, lilacs grow throughout the northern and central US, while dogwoods are better grown by observers in the southeast and gulf states. Review the purchase options on our website, and once you have received your cloned plant, check the information on selecting a site for planting and how to take care of your cloned plant. Cloned plant phenology is observed and recorded using the monitoring instructions found on the How to Observe page and using the details on the plant profile page.

The OPAL Biodiversity Survey needs citizen scientists in England to help uncover the diverse range of wildlife in hedges. By contributing, you'll help researchers learn more about the importance of hedges and how we can improve them.

Hedges support many animals by providing them with food and shelter. Berries and seeds are food for birds, while holes beneath the hedge are often home to small mammals. You’ll also discover caterpillars, shieldbugs and many other invertebrates living among the leaves.

By sharing your observations with the project, reseachers can instantly rate the condition of your hedge and offer suggestions on how to improve it.

This is one of five OPAL surveys across England to learn more about the state of the environment. Anyone can get involved. The studies are open to all ages and abilities, and your contribution will be important in helping scientists build up a picture of England's natural environment.

The OPAL Climate Survey consists of four ways to help researchers investigate how human activities affect the climate. These include:

Activity 1 - Contrails in the Sky: By looking for contrails (tracks left by planes) in the sky and reporting your results online, you'll help scientists test the accuracy of existing computer models that tell us where contrails should be.

Activity 2 and 3 - Measuring the Wind: In Activity 2, you'll use a mirror and compass to measure the wind direction at cloud height. In Activity 3, you'll use bubbles to calculate the wind direction and speed at our height.

Activity 4 - How the Weather Affects Us: You'll answer simple questions about how hot or cold you feel and the types of clothes you are wearing.

This is one of five OPAL surveys across England to learn more about the state of the environment. Anyone can get involved. The studies are open to all ages and abilities, and your contribution will be important in helping scientists build up a picture of England's natural environment.

We are looking for volunteers for our upcoming Yuri's Education Day event at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View this April 8, 2011 as we honor the 50th anniversary of the first astronaut who entered into space, Yuri Gagarin. This upcoming year, we are expecting more than 6,000 attendees from the greater San Francisco Bay Area to join together in a one-of-a-kind experience, and we are excited to create an innovative and interactive learning environment with your help!

On April 8th, from 9am-3pm, bay area educators and students are invited to participate in a free educational extravaganza of science, art, math, technology, engineering, sustainability, and space-related fun. Join us in hosting thousands of elementary, middle, high school, and college students from around the San Francisco Bay Area in an eclectic learning experience featuring presentations, workshops, interactive exhibits, and hands-on activities by prominent scientists, visionaries, space-enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs from multiple disciplines.

Join RainLog's network of over 1,000 volunteers that use backyard rain gauges to monitor precipitation across Arizona and in neighboring states. Data collected through this network will be used for a variety of applications, from watershed management activities to drought planning at local, county, and state levels.

All you need to participate is a rain gauge and access to the Internet. Volunteers select a rain gauge, install it at home, and report daily total rainfall amounts through the online data entry form. Volunteers are asked to track daily or monthly precipitation amounts.

Precipitation amounts are highly variable across Arizona due to topography and seasonal weather patterns. This is especially true during the monsoon season, when thunderstorms can produce heavy rainfall that is very localized.

Your observations will provide valuable information to be used in drought monitoring and resource management decision-making.

All data posted by volunteers is available in real-time in maps. These maps are useful in tracking high-resolution variability in precipitation patterns and potential changes in drought status. As more people participate and more information is gathered, the resolution of the maps will improve.

Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.

Submit wildlife and plant sightings into an online community science database. Individuals or group surveys, amateur or professional, all can participate and contribute

How much snow is on the ground where you are? Cryosphere researchers want to know! Report the depth of your snow. All you need is a ruler. Please make a report even if you don't have any snow; just report a depth of 0! Your data will show up in our world map of snow tweets!
This project is part of the Changing Planet series in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, NBC News, Discover Magazine, Planet Forward and ScienceForCitizens.net .

Maryland Science Center's Communicating Climate Change project needs volunteers to take temperature measurements across the urban-rural gradient. The study will look at Urban Heat Islands, which provide a glimpse of what the world will look like with warmer temperatures.

The Urban Heat Island Effect describes the temperature difference between a metropolitan area and the more rural landscape nearby. The Urban Heat Effect is not an effect of climate change, but rather of human activity shaping our environment. One may ask, if we can make changes on a local scale, are we also responsible for changes globally?

The Maryland Science Center and our research partners at the Baltimore Ecosystem Study are proud to join eleven science centers across the nation in the Association of Science and Technology Center’s C3: Communicating Climate Change Citizen Science project.

You too can be a scientist and take part a long term research study!

A citizen science smartphone application is currently in development for 2011. Interested scientists may contact C3@marylandsciencecenter.org to be notified when the application is released to the public.

There is no geographic or age restriction on participation.

The Dragonfly Swarm Project uses the power of the internet to allow everyone to participate in a large-scale study of dragonfly swarming behavior. Participants observe dragonfly swarms wherever they occur, make observations of the composition and behavior of the swarm, then submit a report online.

Data is compiled from the reports by an aquatic entomologist with a passion for dragonflies. Her goal is to use the data collected from participants for two purposes: 1) to publish data from a massive number of dragonfly swarms in the scientific literature, making this information available to scientists, and 2) to provide information about this behavior to the public. Many people see dragonfly swarms and are curious about what they see. The creator of this project hopes to provide answers to the curious while simultaneously collecting information from eye-witnesses to improve our overall knowledge of this fascinating behavior.

Because any given person has to be in the right place at the right time to see a dragonfly swarm, this project isn't possible for a single scientist to do alone. Collecting data from a large network of people is thus the best way to study dragonfly swarming behavior. Participation requires only curiosity and a few minutes of your time, so keep an eye out for dragonfly swarms in your area this summer and send in your reports!

Please visit http://thedragonflywoman.com/the-dragonfly-swarm-project for more information. Thanks in advance for your participation!

EteRNA is the first-ever global laboratory where scientists, educators, students, online gamers, and any human being with a strong interest in unlocking the mystery of life will collectively help solve world's biggest scientific problems.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a substance that our cells use to translate and express genetic information from our DNA. We now know that folding and shape-shifting allows RNA and its partners to control the cell in a predictable fashion. However, the full biological and medical implications of these discoveries are still being worked out.

By playing EteRNA, you will help extend and curate the first large scale library of synthetic RNA designs. You play by designing RNAs, tiny molecules at the heart of every cell. If you win the weekly competition your RNA is synthesized and scored by how well it folds. Your efforts will help us understand, dissect, and control the functional properties of real and designed RNAs from bacteria, viruses, and our own cells. Join the global laboratory!

IceWatch USA gives you the opportunity to help scientists study how our climate is changing. With as little as 10 minutes, you can report information that will help to analyze how our climate will change in different regions of the United States and how our ecosystems are reacting to the change.

Due to the increased emissions of greenhouse gases, among other factors, our climate is changing. Accurately recording and analyzing "ice on" and "ice off" events (also known as "ice phenology"), as well as other factors like snow depth, air temperature, and wildlife observations, offers a practical way to learn how climate change affects our environment. Even if you live in a southern state that doesn't experience ice, your winter observations of air temperature, precipitation, and wildlife are still important for the big picture.

IceWatch USA needs your help, and becoming an IceWatcher is very easy. All you need to do is:

1. Choose a location to observe over the winter, such as a nearby lake, bay, or river.
2. Record and report your observations.

Your information will be entered into a database, compared to other reports, and shared with interested scientists. IceWatch USA is also a proud partner of the National Phenology Network.

Get started today!

SKYWARN is a national network of volunteer severe weather spotters. The spotters are trained by local National Weather Service Forecast Offices on how to spot severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, and flooding. In some parts of the country, spotters also report snowfall and ice accumulation.

During hazardous weather, such as severe thunderstorms, floods, tornadoes, snow and ice storms, SKYWARN volunteers report what is happening at their location. They are asked to report whenever certain criteria are met such as when one inch of rain has fallen, four inches of snow is on the ground, a thunderstorm is producing hail, or trees have been blown down.

Reports arrive at the forecaster's office via the telephone, fax, Internet, and amateur radio. The reports are combined with radar and satellite data to determine what the storms will do next. Spotters provide the "ground-truth" to forecasters. Radar may tell us that heavy snow is falling, but it can not tell us how much snow is on the ground or if rain is mixing with the snow. Spotters do. The reports are used by forecasters to send out public statements, warnings and advisories, and short-term forecasts.

Two-thirds of SKYWARN volunteers are licensed amateur radio operators. Amateur radio plays a big role in the SKYWARN program. During severe weather, amateur radio volunteers man a radio station at our office. They talk to our spotters in the particular area that a storm is hitting and request information needed by the forecasters such as hail size or rainfall accumulation. Large storms such as hurricanes can knock out phone service. SKYWARN amateur radio volunteers help us when there are communications outages so that we can continue to receive weather reports and feed warnings and other critical information out to communities.

SKYWARN volunteers are people who either have a strong interest in weather or are public service oriented. This includes amateur radio operators, REACT members, or emergency response personnel. Our spotters are all ages beginning as young as 14 and range well into retirement age. We have farmers, pilots, engineers, housewives, lawyers, television cameramen, teachers, students, firemen, and more. Our volunteers are truly diverse but with a common interest in weather and a strong desire to help their community.

Adopt-A-Peak volunteers agree to visit a peak or trail section in the Appalachian Mountains periodically during the growing season. Volunteers will help track long-term trends in plant flowering, fall foliage, and visibility conditions on the mountain they adopt.

Hikers are great resources for frequent reporting from remote areas that could not be observed otherwise. Adopt-A-Peak focuses our monitoring efforts on a specific location year after year. Volunteers are needed for forest and alpine flower monitoring from late May through August, but this effort intensifies in June, which is Flower Watch Month. Fall foliage monitoring can begin as early as September and go through the end of leaf drop.

Visibility is monitored on every visit by taking a photograph. Volunteers are encouraged to monitor both plants and visibility.

Individuals, school groups, outing clubs, flower groups: Adopt-A-Peak!

Mountain Watch needs hikers like you to observe the timing of flower and fruit development along Appalachian Mountain trails. These data will be included in a long-term study to understand how shifts in climate trends may impact mountain flora.

Plants in ecosystems that depend on colder weather, such as alpine and other mountain environments, may act as sensitive bioindicators of climate change. Scientists are paying particular attention to alpine and arctic ecosystems around the world. Although alpine areas in the northeast United States are rare, they are economically, socially, and spiritually a distinct part of the Appalachian mountains.

Mountain Watch scientists will compile your data and produce a web-based database of the observations. As this collection of information grows, it will be analyzed for trends indicating climate change. The information will also be used for public education, to raise media attention, and to advocate for appropriate environmental policy to address climate change.

Mountain Watch will share your monitoring reports with its partners, the National Phenology Network (see http://scienceforcitizens.net/project/7/ ) and the Appalachian Trail Mega-Transect Monitoring project, contributing unique mountain data to these larger national and regional studies. By collecting data from thousands of hikers in the Appalachian Mountains, the project aims to further scientific understanding of how global climate change affects the health and vitality of key flora in mountain ecosystems.

The Colorado River Watch Network supports volunteers who monitor the water quality at strategically located sites across the Colorado River watershed from West Texas to the coast. The network serves as an early warning system that alerts the Lower Colorado River Authority to potential water quality threats.

The network's mission is to encourage and support community-based environmental stewardship by providing citizens, teachers, and students with the information, resources, and training necessary to monitor and protect the waterways of the lower Colorado River watershed.

Volunteer monitors submit data for approximately 120 sites each year, with an average annual total of roughly 1,000 monitoring events reported.

Map habitat in backyards, parks, and schools. Work towards more sustainable landscapes. The YardMap network lets you draw your landscapes with a beautiful online mapping tool and helps you learn about how to use your outdoor spaces (big or small) to aid birds and other wildlife. Connect to other citizen scientists, solve problems, share your maps and good ideas all while helping to build an invaluable database of habitat data for Cornell Lab of Ornithology Scientists.

Tree Tracker participants will take part in an exciting training session and then visit specific trees in their neighborhoods to observe and record the life cycle changes in trees. This information can then be used to learn more about changes in climate. Participants upload their observations to the Project Budburst website, which professional scientists then use. Citizen scientists can see recently uploaded observations as well as year-end reports from the professional scientists.

The trainings will happen during the fall and spring of each year and participants will then collect data throughout the year. We encourage anyone interested in the project to get in touch with us so that we can register them for the next available training. Even if you can't make the training, you can still make observations!

Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project that aims to produce predictions of the Earth's climate up to the year 2300 and to test the accuracy of climate models. To do this, the project needs people around the world to volunteer time on their computers - time when their computers are on but not being used at full capacity.

The project needs you to run a climate model program on your computer. The model will run automatically in the background whenever you switch your computer on, and it should not affect any other tasks for which you use your computer. As the model runs, you can watch the weather patterns evolve on your unique version of the world. The results are sent back to project coordinators via the Internet, and you will be able to see a summary of your results on the website. Climateprediction.net uses the same underlying software, BOINC, as many other distributed computing projects and, if you like, you can participate in more than one project at a time. (You can find out more about BOINC at http://scienceforcitizens.net/project/54/)

Climate change, and our response to it, are issues of global importance, affecting food production, water resources, ecosystems, energy demand, insurance costs, and much else. Current research suggests that the Earth will probably warm over the coming century; Climateprediction.net should, for the first time, tell us what is most likely to happen.

COASST is a network of citizen scientists that monitor marine resources and ecosystem health at 300 beaches across northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.

Team volunteers pledge to survey their beach every month. In return, the COASST office pledges to put all of the data together, decipher the patterns across the entire survey range, and give that information back out to volunteers and the communities.

COASST believes that the citizens of coastal communities are essential scientific partners in monitoring marine ecosystem health. By collaborating with citizens, natural resource management agencies, and environmental organizations, COASST works to translate long-term monitoring into effective marine conservation solutions.

Tracking Climate in Your Backyard seeks to engage youth in real science through the collection, recording, and understanding of precipitation data in the forms of rain, hail, and snow.

The purpose of this project is to encourage youth, specifically ages 8-12, to better understand the scientific process by engaging them in the collection of meaningful meteorological data in their community. In this way, youth develop an understanding of scientific methods and standardization, and by recording and sharing their data through a citizen science project, they recognize the importance of accurate data collection. The citizen science portion of the project, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (see http://scienceforcitizens.net/project/25/ ), collects precipitation data for scientific analysis and for issuance of severe storm warnings and flash flooding events. We believe that when youth know they are contributing data to a real, scientific cause, their engagement levels rise.

This National Science Foundation-funded project is a collaboration between the Paleontological Research Institution and Museum of the Earth, which have experience in professional development and informal education, New York State 4-H, which provides an excellent outreach base and fosters hands-on, experiential learning for youth, and the <a href="http://scienceforcitizens.net/project/25/">Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network</a>, which runs a citizen science project to record precipitation measurements in an online database.

Nature's Calendar is a survey conducted by thousands of volunteers who record the signs of the seasons in the United Kingdom.

This could mean noting the first ladybird or swallow seen in your garden in spring, or the first blackberry in your local wood in autumn.

If you live in the UK, you don’t have to be an expert to take part, and lots of help is given, including a nature identification booklet that you receive when you register.

This kind of recording has moved from being a harmless hobby to a crucial source of evidence as to how our wildlife is responding to climate change.

The Mastodon Matrix Project needs citizen volunteers to analyze actual samples of matrix (the dirt) from a 14,000 year old mastodon excavated in New York! Learn the process of science and work like a paleontologist on real research material!

Volunteers sort through the matrix to find shells, bones, hair, pieces of plants, and rocks from the time when the mastodons lived and roamed the Earth. The matrix and discoveries are then sent back to the Paleontological Research Institution, where they will be cataloged and further analyzed by paleontologists to help scientists form a true picture of the ecology and environment of the late Pleistocene.

Mastodons are extinct relatives of modern elephants. Mastodons were numerous and widespread in North America up until around 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct--with many other species--at the end of the last glacial period.

ClimateWatch aims to create a leading online database for environmental scientists studying the effects of climate change in Australia. It will be created from data entered by citizen scientists and other volunteer observers all around the country who will record their observations and then enter them into the ClimateWatch website.

Climate change is affecting rainfall and temperature across Australia. As a consequence, flowering times, breeding cycles and migration movements are also changing. Scientists have very little data available to understand the impacts of this. You can help.

By observing the timing of natural events (the study of phenology), such as the budding of flowers, falling of leaves and the appearance of migratory birds, the data you collect and record will help shape the country's scientific response to climate change.

Project FeederWatch is a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. Counts can be submitted online or on paper forms.

Anyone with an interest in birds can participate! FeederWatch is conducted by people of all skill levels and backgrounds, including children, families, individuals, classrooms, retired persons, youth groups, nature centers, and bird clubs.

FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance. FeederWatch results are regularly published in scientific journals and are shared with ornithologists and bird lovers nationwide. The counts you submit will make sure that your birds (or lack of birds) are represented in papers and in the results found in the Explore Data section of the FeederWatch website.

In addition to instructional materials, registered participants receive a subscription to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's quarterly newsletter, BirdScope as well as a summary of results from the prior season each fall.

The Urban Forest Map is a collaborative effort to map every tree in the city of San Francisco. As a citizen forester, you can get involved by searching for trees, verifying records, and by adding the trees in your neighborhood!

Along the way, researchers will use this data to calculate the environmental benefits that the trees are providing -- how many gallons of storm water they are helping to filter, how many pounds of air pollutants they are capturing, how many kilowatt-hours of energy they are conserving, and how many tons of carbon dioxide they are removing from the atmosphere. The information we gather will help urban foresters and city planners to better manage trees in specific areas, track and combat tree pests and diseases, and plan future tree plantings. Climatologists can use it to better understand the effects of urban forests on climates, and students and citizen scientists can use it to learn about the role trees play in the urban ecosystem.

The goal of Urban Forest Map is to provide a one-stop repository for tree data, welcoming information from any agency or group and enabling and celebrating citizen participation. Together, we'll work toward building a complete, dynamic picture of the urban forest.

Archeology Dig started by Louis Leakey to study the origins of Early Man in the Americas. Volunteer on site in the California high desert or process artifacts in the San Bernardino County Museum under the direction of Dr. Dee Schroth, SBCM Curator of Anthropology, and Calico Project Archaeologist.

Whether in a shrub, a tree, or a nest box, bird nests are everywhere. Find one, and you can help scientists study the biology and monitor populations of North America’s birds by joining the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s NestWatch program. Every year, volunteers from across the country visit nests once or twice each week and monitor their progression from incubating eggs to fuzzy chicks to fully feathered adults. They then submit this data to NestWatch where it is compiled and analyzed.

NestWatch helps people of all ages and backgrounds connect with nature. The information that NestWatchers collect allows us to understand the impact that various threats, such as environmental change and habitat destruction, have on breeding birds. Armed with this knowledge, we can take the necessary steps to help birds survive in this changing world.

How much snow is on the ground where you are? Cryosphere researchers at the University of Waterloo want to know!

The Snowtweets Project provides a way for people interested in snow measurements to quickly broadcast their own snow depth measurements to the web. These data are then picked up by our database and mapped in near real time. We are especially interested in using web-based digital technologies to map snow data; currently, the project uses the micro-blogging site Twitter as its data broadcasting scheme.

To view the snow depth measurements (or Tweets), we have developed a data visualization tool called Snowbird that lets you explore the reported snow depths around the globe (see http://bit.ly/a73joY). The viewer shows where the reports are located and how much snow there is at each reported site.

The Snowtweets Project is in early stages of development and we plan to update and improve it as we go along. We rely on user participation to measure snow depth (including zero snow depth) and then send the measurements in.

Help researchers map the location of graveyards around the globe and then use marble gravestones in those graveyards to measure the weathering rate of marble at that location. The weathering rates of gravestones are an indication of changes in the acidity of rainfall between locations and over time. The acidity is affected by air pollution and other factors, and could be used as a measure of changes in climate and pollution levels.

This project has two levels of data collection. The Graveyard Data level - the location of graveyards - requires only a GPS. The Gravestone Data level - the measurement of the weathering of marble gravestones - requires a micrometer. You can do the first or both tasks, but we strongly suggest that before you purchase a micrometer (available through the EarthTrek online store, at hardware and some hobby stores) that you make sure that you can locate the type of gravestone.

Collecting the location data of the graveyards is an important part of this project. Logging data about graveyards that do not contain the marble gravestones is equally important.

Six out of 10 people in the US have never seen our Milky Way Galaxy arch across their night sky from where they live. And the problem of light pollution is quickly getting worse. Within a couple of generations in the U.S., only the national parks will have dark enough skies to see the Milky Way.

Too much outdoor lighting not only affects being able to see the stars, but also wastes energy and money, about 2 to 10 billion dollars a year. And it has been shown to cause sleep disorders in people and to disrupt the habits of animals like newly hatched sea turtles that try to find their way back into the ocean but are disoriented by streetlights.

Light pollution may be a global problem, but the solutions are local. To help people “see the light”, an international star-hunting program for students, teachers, and the general public was created called GLOBE at Night. GLOBE at Night is now in its 5th year and is hosted by the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

This year, the annual event takes place March 3-16, each night from 8-10pm, when there will be no Moon and the constellation, Orion, will be visible to naked eyes from almost any location on Earth. Everyone around the world is invited to participate.

Through this program, children and adults are encouraged to reconnect with the night sky and learn about light pollution and in doing so, become citizen scientists inspired to protect this natural resource. Teachers like the GLOBE at Night program, because it lends itself to cross-curricular learning: astronomy, geography, history, literature, and writing. The possibilities are great.

Volunteers-In-Parks participants work side-by-side with National Park Service employees to preserve the United States' natural and cultural legacy and to help visitors discover the resources, meanings, and values found in its national parks. Anyone can be a "VIP": individuals, couples, families, students, and organized groups from all over the United States and the world. Become a VIP and put yourself at the heart of the park experience!

Volunteers-In-Parks participants play an ever-increasing role in national parks through a variety of jobs, including answering visitor questions at an information desk, presenting living history demonstrations in period costumes, building fences, painting buildings, making cabinets, giving guided nature walks and evening campfire programs, assisting with preservation of museum artifacts, maintaining trails, building boardwalks, designing computer programs or park websites, and serving on a bike, horseback, or beach patrol.

National Park Service internships provide learning opportunities through activities such as wilderness re-vegetation, assistance with preservation and restoration projects, water quality monitoring, surveying, educational cave tours, or assisting resource management staff. Internships offer an interesting and educational experience in some of the most beautiful areas of the country.

This is your chance to get actively involved in the stewardship of the United States' national and natural treasures.

Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line (S’COOL) is a citizen science project in which volunteers make and report cloud observations from sites of their choosing, such as a field trip, vacation, or even a backyard. The project aims to collect data on cloud type, height, cover, and related conditions from all over the world. Observations are sent to NASA for comparison to similar information obtained from satellite.

Many people take for granted how powerful clouds are in our atmosphere. It is clouds, in part, that affect the overall temperature and energy balance of the Earth. The more that scientists know about clouds, the more they will know about our Earth as a system. The S'COOL observations help validate satellite data and give a more complete picture of clouds in the atmosphere and their interactions with other parts of the integrated global Earth system. Citizens benefit from their participation in a real-world science experiment and from their access to a variety of background material. Educational materials for teachers are also available.

Related Material:
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/Rover/

The National Science Digital Library encourages citizens to help enlarge and strengthen their library of high quality resources and tools that support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Developers of content in these subject areas, National Science Foundation grantees, educators and learners, and all other members of the community are welcome to recommend digital resources for the library. These resources include activities, lesson plans, Web sites, simulations, or any materials that help educators meet the demands of an increasingly complex technology-based world.

As a national network of learning environments, resources, and partnerships, the National Science Digital Library seeks to serve a vital role in educational cyberlearning for the nation, meeting the informational and technological needs of educators and learners at all levels.

Global Warming Ambassadors are volunteers trained by the National Wildlife Federation to conduct outreach to the general public through presentations and community events. Ambassadors will describe global warming concepts, how climate change affects wildlife habitat in our country as well as your state, and what people can do on an individual level to confront global warming.

This work will help the National Wildlife Federation educate, inspire, and assist individuals and organizations of diverse cultures in conserving wildlife and other natural resources.

Discover Life is calling all citizen scientists in the DC/Baltimore area to help them map out the distribution of crickets and katydids through the city and suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC. Participants can track the sounds of these insects during the annual Cricket Crawl event held on the evening of Friday, August 24th 2012.

This project is a collaborative venture between Discover Life, The Audubon Naturalist Society, The Natural History Society of Maryland and the USGS

Project BudBurst engages the public in making careful observations of phenophases such as first leafing, first flower, and first fruit ripening of a diversity of trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses in their local area. Project BudBurst has targeted 75 native trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses to monitor throughout the year. With the help of citizen scientists, the project will compile valuable environmental information that can be compared to historical records. By recording the timing of the leafing and flowering of native species each year, scientists can learn about the prevailing climatic characteristics in a region over time.

Join thousands of other citizen scientists in gathering this valuable environmental and climate change information!

Related Material: http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2009/03/loved_the_philadelphia_flower_show_try_this_at_home/

The Citizen Weather Observer Program is a group of ham radio operators and other private citizens around the country who have volunteered the use of their weather data for education, research, and use by interested parties. There are currently over 8,000 registered members worldwide and over 500 different user organizations. Their weather data are used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and distributed to user organizations.

The Citizen Weather Observer Program is a public-private partnership with three main goals:

1. Collect weather data contributed by citizens
2. Make these data available for weather services and homeland security
3. Provide feedback to the data contributors so that they have the tools to check and improve their data quality.

EnvironMentors provides mentors to high school students from under-represented backgrounds for college degree programs in environmental and related science fields. The program matches minority high school students with college and university faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and science and environmental professionals, in one-to-one mentoring relationships. Working together, students and mentors develop rigorous environmental science research projects over the course of the academic year.

In the spring, EnvironMentors students present their projects to elementary school classes in their respective school districts and to a team of judges at each chapter's EnvironMentors Fair. The top three students from each chapter travel to Washington, D.C., to present their project at the National EnvironMentors Fair.

EnvironMentors' integrative approach to identifying pressing environmental issues through hands-on application of the scientific method supported by a mentor has proven beneficial all students and life-changing for some.

Related Material: Call For EnviroMentors (Science Cheerleader blog): http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2009/08/call_for_environmentors/

The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) is a unique, non-profit, community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together towBy using low-cost measurement tools, stressing training and education, and utilizing an interactive website, our aim is to provide the highest quality data for natural resource, education and research applications.

Each time a rain, hail, or snow storm occurs, volunteers take measurements of precipitation from their registered locations (reports of 'zero' precipitation are encouraged too!). The reports are submitted to the website and are immediately available for viewing. It's educational, but moreover, fun! Just wait until you start comparing how much rain fell in your backyard vs. your neighbor!

The data are used by the National Weather Service, meteorologists, hydrologists, emergency managers, city utilities, insurance adjusters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, engineers, mosquito control, ranchers and farmers, outdoor and recreation interests, teachers, students, and neighbors in the community.

Related Material: View the 'Story of CoCoRaHS' here: http://www.youtube.com/cocorahs

Track Local Rain, Hail, and Snow Precipitations (Science Cheerleader) at http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2009/01/track_local_rain_hail_and_snow_precipitations/

Citizen Scientists Weathered the Tornado Outbreak (Talking Science) at:
http://www.talkingscience.org/2011/05/citizen-scientists-weathered-the-tornado-outbreak/