want to help the great outdoors?

[lily51]

Does anyone participate in citizen scientist projects?
I do Project Feeder Watch, which is bird feeder observations and reporting from Nov till spring. If you already have feeder stations it's a very easy thing to do and helps monitor bird populations.
This fall my grandson and I planted tulip gardens for project tulip
Watch which monitors seasons across the country. In the spring he'll report the appearance of the tulips, plus we will do more and use it as part of his home school data collection, charts, weather, plants units.
These both are through Cornell university. They monitor many other species, too. Fun to watch online....monarchs, cranes and more.

[webmaster]

Any links to share?

[lily51]

Oops. The tulip gardens are through Journey north
Sorry. I'll post links

[imafan26]

We have the humpback whale count from January to March.

https://hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov/inv ... lcome.html

I don't know if this one counts but the Department of Agriculture is looking for homeowners willing to have traps put up in their yards to monitor for the new pest rhinocerous beetles.

Anyone from Hawaii who thinks they have seen either the rhinoceros beetle or little fire ant can call 643-PEST.

[rainbowgardener]

I've participated in the New Years Day bird count and great backyard bird count and the hummingbird migration tracking.

Wiki has a nice list of citizen science opportunities here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ci ... e_projects

I think they are cool things to be involved with.

I was at a workshop on this topic one time and they suggested anyone can be a citizen scientist. One easy and important thing to do is just to take a good picture of some particular landscape feature, maybe a tree with the ground around it, a particular shrub, pond, etc. Mark the spot you take the picture from and take the same picture at least seasonally, maybe once a month. Label the pictures with the date. Over a period of years, it shows climate change etc. How early did the tree leaf out , change colors or how much water was in the pond at different times, seasons? Having those series pictures will be important in documenting what is happening. It might be particularly useful if you have an older picture of a certain tree or whatever, that you can replicate.

[PaulF]

Thanks for the thread. I just signed up for the bird feeder watch. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

[lily51]

We have the humpback whale count from January to March.

https://hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov/inv ... lcome.html

.

Lucky you!! We were fortunate to visit your beautiful state two Januaries ago. The beauty far surpassed what I had pictured in my mind. We took a whale tour from Maui, and saw many humpbacks doing things like breeching, slapping pectoral fins on water, huge tails slapping water and headed straight down for a dive. It was awe-inspiring. We just don't see anything quite like that in Ohio!

We were lucky to be able to spend time on each of the four main islands, each so different and enchanting in its own way.
I highly recommend anyone who can to visit lovely Hawaii. And no, I'm not a travel agent.

[lily51]

Here are the two sites I use, the first for tulip gardens, monarch, crane, and other monitoring.
The second is for project feeder watch (you might have guessed this.)
Opportunities to get involved at any age. I used both when I taught environmental science to high school, and am using them with my 9 year old grandson who is doing homeschool. And I visit both regularly even though I am retired.

https://www.learner.org/jnorth
feederwatch.org/

[LIcenter]

I belong to eBird, and also do a feeder watch. I am also able to submit my bird sightings of where ever I have been that day, and It alerts me of any type of bird I might be looking to get a picture of, or a rare bird that might be in my area.

https://ebird.org/content/ebird/