At school

Project MERCCURI is an investigation of how microbes found in buildings on Earth (in public buildings, stadiums, etc) compare to those on board the biggest building ever built in space – the International Space Station (ISS).

The project provides an opportunity for YOU-- citizen scientists and student scientists --to participate in the research by using kits we will send you to collect microbes from surface areas in buildings or even your own cell phone or shoes. You can form a team or join a team to collect samples through September 2013 with the help of the Science Cheerleaders (current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders who are also scientists and engineers!).
Your samples will be mailed to the University of California Davis where they will be sequenced and analyzed. Results will be shared on SciStarter so you can compare your samples to those from other locations, including the International Space Station! In addition, up to 40 samples will be selected to fly on the International Space Station where their growth rates will be compared to their counterparts in the UCDavis lab! Wouldn't it be cool if your sample is sent to the International Space Station!?

Teachers: Meet the Project MERCCURI team at the National Science Teachers Association conference in San Antonio on April 11, from 2-3pm! Then, join us at the San Antonio Spurs game on April 12 as we collect microbes from the stadium to send to space!

We collected microbes from a Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic games and now we invite you to join us at the following events (more will be posted on SciStarter.com/ISS):

April 11: National Science Teachers Association annual conference in San Antonio. From 2-3 pm, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, room 215. If you plan to be there, swing by, say hi, and learn how to get involved in Project MERCCURI to send microbes to space!

April 12: San Antonio Spurs game. Meet us on the court to collect microbes and shoot some baskets! The Spurs are offering discount tickets in addition to providing access to their court! Note: This game is almost sold out so consider purchasing your ticket soon.

April 12: We'll be at Yuri's Night parties celebrating the anniversary of manned space flight...and helping guests collect microbes from their own shoes and cellphones. Meet us at the Museum of Life and Sciences in Durham, NC, the Science Club in Washington, DC, and the California Science Center in L.A.

April 16: We'll be at the National Arts Building in New York City to celebrate Yuri's Night and collect more microbes.

April 20: Philadelphia Science Festival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway! Stay tuned for more on that!

April 20-21: Calling all programmers! Help hack an app for Project MERCCURI at the NASA Space Apps Challenge in Philly!
If you can’t make it to one of these events, have no fear. We’re in the process of confirming similar events across the country and WE NEED YOU to help us collect microbes and, if you're interested, analyze the results. We will send periodic updates to you as new events are confirmed. We will also hold contests and other special offers to give you the chance to send your microbes to us from the comfort of your home.

Despite its apparently steady glow, the Sun is a churning mass of superhot plasma that regularly produces powerful flares and storms that can knock out power and communication systems here on Earth. With this Lab explore what makes the Sun so volatile and get access to the same data, images, and tools that scientists use to predict solar storms—so that you can predict them for yourself.

CyberTracker Conservation is a non-profit organisation that promotes the vision of a Worldwide Environmental Monitoring Network. Our ultimate vision is that smart phone users worldwide will use CyberTracker to capture observations on a daily basis.

CyberTracker is the most efficient method of gps field data collection. You can use CyberTracker on a Smartphone or handheld computer to record any type of observation. CyberTracker, which requires no programming skills, allows you to customize an Application for your own data collection needs.

Starting March 15, 2013, the Audubon Society needs citizen scientists to track, report on, and follow the spring hummingbird migration in real time. A free mobile app makes it easy to report sightings, share photos and learn more about these remarkable birds.

Your participation will help scientists understand how hummingbirds are impacted by climate change, flowering patterns, and feeding by people.

You can participate at any level – from reporting a single sighting to documenting hummingbird activity in your community throughout the life of the project. Help scientists document the hummingbirds journey and direct change in the future to ensure these incredible birds do not disappear.

A study was conducted 40 years ago which suggested a link between climate and when west-European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) come out of hibernation. Last year we repeated this study and over two thousand people logged around 45,000 hedgehogs across Britain. The unusual weather in 2012 has made patterns of activity quite confusing so we are repeating the survey this year to find out more.

We need your help to collect hedgehog records from 1st February until 31st August 2013. Understanding patterns of hedgehog behaviour across the UK will enable us to target the conservation strategy for this charming animal, which is currently in severe decline.

The iSeeChange Almanac is a socially networked weather Almanac for communities to collectively journal their climate experiences -- their observations, feelings, questions, and decisions --- against near-real time climate information.

Founded in April 2012 in Western Colorado, iSeeChange is a public radio and media experiment that fosters multimedia conversations between citizens and scientists about how seasonal weather and climate extremes affect daily American life. From the earliest spring recorded in the history of the United States, a landmark wildfire season, nationwide droughts, and weather records breaking everyday, climate affects every citizen and binds communities together.

iSeeChange is produced by Julia Kumari Drapkin in Western Colorado at KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio as a part of Localore, a nationwide production of AIR in collaboration with Zeega, with principal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

We just launched the Almanac this week in Western Colorado. Stay tuned for more locations in the coming year!

AirCasting is a platform for recording, mapping, and sharing health and environmental data using your smartphone. Each AirCasting session lets you capture real-world measurements, annotate the data to tell your story, and share it via the CrowdMap.

Using the AirCasting Android app, AirCasters can record, map, and share:
(o) sound levels recorded by their phone microphone;
(o) temperature, humidity, CO and NO2 gas concentrations recorded by the Arduino-powered AirCasting Air Monitor, and;
(o) heart rate measurements recorded by the Zephyr HxM.

Using AirCasting Luminescence, these sensor streams can also be represented using LED lights.

The Human Microbiome Project and other microbiome projects worldwide have laid an important foundation for understanding the trillions of microbes that inhabits each of our bodies. However, opportunities for the public to get involved in such research has been limited. Now, American Gut gives you an opportunity to participate and to compare the microbes in your gut to those in the guts of thousands of other people in the US and elsewhere. American Gut is a project built on open-source, open-access principles. Our data are for the good of understanding and will be shared both with participants and with other scientists.

Help track the health and abundance of the mid-Atlantic scallop fishery!

Researchers at the University of Delaware have developed a new robot-based approach to surveying marine life the ocean floor. They use Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), which can navigate underwater without direct human control, to take photos of marine life in its natural habitat.

By becoming a SubseaObserver you'll play a roll in ocean conservation by helping organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) make better decisions about how to manage the scallop fishery now and for future generations.

As a SubseaObserver you can name your own virtual AUV and choose what part of the mid-Atlantic you'd like to explore.

SubseaObservers also includes information about scallop biology, how the fishery is managed, how AUVs work and where they're used.

Psychologists at Birkbeck Babylab wants to know what makes babies laugh. We think babies are going to be laughing at things that they are just starting to understand. (Once you know that dogs are supposed to go ‘woof’, a dog that goes ‘miaow’ is only going to be hilarious.) With enough detailed observations from enough babies at different ages we can paint a cheerful picture of what they understand at different ages.

So if you’ve made a baby laugh recently we’d like to hear about it. If you haven’t made a baby laugh recently, go and find one and get to work. It's fun but it's also science!

Project BudBurst, a NEON citizen science program, is a network of people across the United States monitoring plants as the seasons change. We are a national field campaign designed to engage the public in the collection of important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plantphenophases). Project BudBurst participants make careful observations of these phenophases. We are interested in observations from five plant groups – deciduous trees and shrubs; wildflowers and herbs; evergreens; conifers; and grasses. To participate, you simply need access to a plant.

Supporting and enhancing our understanding of continental-scale environmental change, Project BudBurst data are being collected in a consistent manner across the country for scientists and educators to use to learn more about the responsiveness of individual plant species to changes in local, regional and national climates. Thousands of people from all 50 states are participating and have generated a robust data set that is available for use by scientists and educators to increase understanding of how plants respond to environmental change. Formal and informal educators are finding Project BudBurst an effective approach to engaging their students and visitors in an authentic research experience.
Join our growing community!

Whether you have an afternoon, a few weeks, a season, or a whole year, you can make an important contribution to a better understanding of changing climates. Participating in Project BudBurst is easy – everything needed to participate is on the web site. Choose a plant to monitor and share your observations with others online. Not sure where to start? Take a look at our Ten Most Wanted species.

Project BudBurst is a NEON Citzen Science Program funded by the National Science Foundation.

Where are the invasive species in Maine? Where aren’t they? Students, educators, citizens, and scientists are working together to find out.

As part of the Vital Signs community you can help steward the 32,000 miles of rivers and streams, 6,000 lakes and ponds, 5,000 miles of coastline, and 17 million acres of forest that are threatened by invasive species.

Together we are using scientific tools and habits of mind to look for native and invasive species in local habitats. We are sharing what we find and do not find online. We are contributing to a greater understanding of our shared environment.

By just taking photos and observing spiders, you can help the Explorit Science Center learn about which climates certain spiders live in and track the distribution of spiders over time.

Join the Explorit’s Community Science Project by finding and recording spiders in your home or neighborhood (as many as you can!). Use your camera or smart phone to take a photo of the spider and submit it online to add to our geographical database.

Spiders have long been thought of a useful natural method of pest control, but how will expected temperature changes or other environmental changes affect the spider’s usefulness as pest-killers and their distribution?

We don't yet know how climate change will impact spiders, and in turn impact agriculture such as crops and farms- but 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.

Access to health care and the cost and safety of healthcare services are of critical interest to our country. Physicians and other professional care providers, and academic and community-based hospitals and clinics, are important partners in discovering the best methods to deliver care. Input from patients – the consumers of healthcare services – is also vital. Regenstrief Institute, Inc., an internationally recognized healthcare research organization affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine, is conducting an online contest, inviting submission of original ideas for improving the delivery of health care in the U.S. As an academic institution, we are particularly interested in the ideas of our next generation of young professionals and scientists. The winning idea will be selected by a panel of medical and community-based professionals and researchers, according to the following criteria: innovative idea with measurable impact for healthcare consumers; feasible to implement in the U.S. healthcare system within five years; and compatible with Regenstrief Institute’s mission to improve health through research that enhances the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. The prize includes a trip for the winner to Indianapolis, Indiana for the idea kick-off at the Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute, Inc.

Landmark Trees of India is a documentation, geography, and monitoring project with a focus on famous, remarkable, and heritage trees of India.
India is a country of superlative population, superlative biodiversity, and superlative environmental variety. These landmark trees can teach us about the landscapes, biodiversity, and people of India and the other nations of the world.

We are a group of scientists interested in exploring the potential applications of Ecuador’s unique biodiversity. As a first step, we are working to assemble and apply gene libraries collected from around the country.
You can join field trips in Ecuador to collect samples, work in a lab extracting and sequencing nucleic acids, or from home assembling and curating the electronic database.

uBiome is the world's first effort to map the human microbiome through citizen science.

What's the microbiome? The microbiome are the bacteria that live on and within us. It sounds kind of funny, but all of us are actually covered in helpful germs. Many conditions – from diabetes to depression, asthma to autism -- have been found to relate to the microbiome.

uBiome brings this cutting edge technology directly to consumers for the first time. The more data we collect, the more we can learn about this important area of research. We've been featured so far in Wired, Venture Beat, the Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, BoingBoing, and more.

Beginning November 14 through the end of the year, students ages 13-18 around the globe are invited to participate in “Data Detectives”, an engaging web experience to learn about how Big Data will impact their lives and the world they will be inheriting.

Data Detectives is the student component of the Human Face of Big Data, a global crowdsourced project conceived by “Day in Life” series creator Rick Smolan. It aims to help people better visualize the ways big data is shaping our future on this planet, and includes a smartphone app, worldwide events, a large format illustrated book with an interactive iPad app, and a documentary.

The Data Detectives initiative invites students to answer questions, explore fascinating examples of how Big Data is changing their world, interact with real-time data and see how other students around the globe are impacted in similar and different ways.

The Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles County, is partnering with Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) to share data and learn more about L.A. butterflies and moths. Help us find and photograph them in Los Angeles.

We know there are 237 species recorded for L.A, County, but how many can you find?

Get to know the nature of YOUR world! The Fairbanks Community of Observers is to encourage greater public clarity around environmental indicators of climate change in Vermont and northern New Hampshire. Using the website developed by the Fairbanks Museum, we'll collect your quantitative data focused on the life cycles of specific birds, butterflies and wildflowers that are sensitive to environmental change as well as seasonal weather data that is characteristic to our region.

The Community of Observers is for individuals, families, clubs, groups and schools. It is designed to encourage citizen scientists to gain a deeper understanding of the cycles and patterns that characterize our region through the seasons, and how the habitats that depend on these cycles might be affected by global climate shifts.

Video games have the potential to do more than entertain. Citizen Sort is taking advantage of this potential by designing video games that make doing science fun.

Citizen Sort is a research project at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University in New York. Students from Syracuse University drew, colored, programmed and coded two unique citizen science video games. They are Forgotten Island and Happy Match.

Happy Match is a twist on the classic matching game. Players will classify photos of animal, plant and insect species that scientists took live in the field. Each round of the game has a different question and players will drag the animal, plant or insect photo into one of the photo answers along the bottom. Scientists wrote the questions in Happy Match based on information they want to know. By classifying the photos, you'll these help scientists as they study the natural world.

Forgotten Island is a point and click adventure game. Players take on the role of a lost adventurer with a secret past. As the player explores the island they meet a suspicious robot spouting orders to re-classify the falling photographs of plant, animal or insect species. The player will also solve puzzles and explore diverse locations from icy peaks to fiery volcanoes.The more classifications a player does, the more money they earn buy items and solve the mystery of Forgotten Island.

Citizen Sort is partially supported by the US National Science Foundation under grant SOCS 09-68470.

Biodiversity Volunteer Portal

Helping to understand, manage and conserve Australia's biodiversity through community based capture of biodiversity data.

Help us capture the wealth of biodiversity information hidden in our natural history collections, field notebooks and survey sheets. This information will be used for better understanding, managing and conserving our precious biodiversity.

SatCam lets you capture observations of sky and ground conditions with a smart phone app at the same time that an Earth observation satellite is overhead.

When you capture a SatCam observation and submit it to our server, it helps us to check the quality of the cloud products that we create from the satellite data. In return, we send you the satellite image that was captured at your location, anywhere in the world! SatCam supports the Terra, Aqua, and Suomi NPP satellites.

SatCam was developed at the Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison .

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) needs you to take complex scientific data and images and turn them into informative graphics to convey a simple and easy to understand messages! The JPL’s newest venture is called JPL Infographics, and they need your help to create and post your very own creations of scientific graphic art.

All of the resources are at your fingertips, including high-resolution images, 3-D models, fact sheets, and loads of other data build your very own Infographics. You can browse the numerous of other user creations to get inspired and then upload your creation online!

This is a really fun and challenging project and your work will be used to educate and inform others on the goings on of cutting-edge space exploration. So fire of both sides of your brain and create some educational space art!

Just listen to a few laughs and tell us whether they are real or posed.

The results will help scientists from University College London to understand the way we perceive and react to different sounds. The experiment should take about 10 minutes.

This DIY mapping tool was the first developed by Public Lab, as part of the Grassroots Mapping project. Citizens use helium-filled balloons and digital cameras to generate high resolution “satellite” maps of areas such as in the Gulf Coast and Gowanus Canal. Although this tool has been in use for two years, components of the kit -- kite and balloon design, the rig, the camera -- continue to evolve as they are adopted in new places and adapted for new purposes. Besides the aerial mapping tools, Public Lab has also developed MapKnitter.org, an online tool for stitching aerial images into maps.

Infrared photography can help in assessing plant health, and has been used on satellites and planes for agricultural and ecological assessment primarily by vineyards, large farms and large-scale (read: expensive) research projects. By creating and open-sourcing a low-cost near-infrared camera and working with wetlands advocates, farmers and environmental activists, the Public Lab community has begun to explore grassroots uses for this powerful analytic technique.

The U.S. Geological Survey is asking volunteers to help map man-made structures and facilities, such as schools and fire stations, in the state of Colorado then, in a few months, the United State. Using an internet mapping application, volunteers can help the USGS update The National Map by correcting or adding information about structures nearby.

"Correctly locating and identifying fire stations, police stations, schools, and hospitals not only makes USGS maps more useful, but can literally save a life," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt.

This smartphone app will help you explore habitats in your area and easily monitor wildlife populations by logging locations, photos, and responding to form questions all with the ease of your smartphone.

More than 7,000 ring-billed gulls have been marked near Montreal, Quebec with individually coded bands to track their movements throughout their annual cycle. We are more specifically interested by their post-breeding dispersal and their fidelity to their colony. Repeated observations of individuals also allow us to estimate annual survival. This is part of a larger study that aimed at understanding the behavior and population dynamics of these birds within an integrated management framework.

At this very moment in Serengeti National Park, 200 cameras are flashing throughout the night, in corners of the park where tourists never go.

These are camera traps -- remote, automatic cameras that take pictures of passing wildlife - and the Serengeti Lion Project is conducting the largest-ever camera trap survey to better understand the Serengeti ecosystem. The camera traps capture over 1,000,000 images of wildlife each year, capturing the grandeur of the wildebeest migration and rarely seen species from aardvarks to zebras.

Help to transmit these photos by satellite from the Serengeti to the U.S., where they can be analyzed to advance science and conservation. Join this unprecedented initiative to bring cutting edge technology to the wilds of Serengeti, and you'll get first access to witness the Serengeti Live on your computer.

Australia's national crowdsourced koala map, plotting the locations of koala populations in the wild, points of impact, causes of death and injury. Become a member of KoalaTracker.com.au to view the map, search the database, see the library of member images available for use in non-commercial projects. Learn more about the koala and how you can really do something to save it before it is too late.

We are currently seeking research assistants to join our field team in Ecuador studying the conservation ecology of reptiles and amphibians.

While Ecuador is a relatively small country—it’s roughly the size of Arizona—it stands as the third most diverse country in the world for amphibians (510 species) and is seventh for reptiles (430 species), making it a herpetologically mega-diverse region. Due to the severe deforestation taking place in addition to many other pressures on Ecuador’s fauna, TBG research program aims to study, document, and preserve these rich and unique communities of reptiles and amphibians found within the country’s diverse array of ecosystems.

As we are now in our 8th year working in Ecuador, we have study sites encompassing both the coastal forests in western Ecuador and the Amazon rainforest on the eastern side of the Andes Mountains. The work that research participants will be involved with will primarily consist of conducting night surveys for reptiles and amphibians (however other taxa such as invertebrates are also of interest), animal data collection, and lab work. Lab work consists of more detailed information such as scale counts (for reptiles) and other morphological information, animal measurements, screening for chytrid disease (amphibians), preservation (only when necessary), and acquisition of DNA samples. Diagnostic photographs of all animals will be taken. Other tasks include animal handling and general note taking and data organization

Volunteer participants will gain valuable research experience, contribute towards our mission in conservation ecology, and will have an unforgettable experience that provides the opportunity to study the most biologically diverse region of reptiles and amphibians in the world. For 2013 we now have expeditions scheduled in Western Ecuador for February 2-13 and FeBruary 16-27 and in Amazonian Ecuador for June 2-13.

The chloroplasts inside plant cells appear to "clump" together during bacterial infection; this can be devastating for plants and seriously compromise crop yields. We need your help to classify plant cell images by their "clumpiness" in order to further this research.

Helping us to classify the images will give insights into the progression of bacterial infection in plant cells.

We need your help to better understand dragonfly migration in North America. Although it spans three countries and has been documented since the 1880s, North American dragonfly migration is still poorly understood, and much remains to be learned about migratory cues, flight pathways, and the southern limits of overwintering grounds. Become part of an international network of citizen scientists and help monitor the spring and fall movements of the 5 main migratory species in North America, or report on these species throughout the year at a pond or wetland of your choice.

Counting butterflies for just fifteen minutes could help scientists better understand the environment. The Big Butterfly Count is a recently started national survey that hopes to engage citizen scientists by creating easy and engaging survey methods. Started by the charity group Butterfly Conservation in 2010, the program has grown to over 34,000 participants!

The big butterfly count takes place this year from Saturday 14th July - Sunday 5th August 2012. All you have to do is submit your butterfly counts for just fifteen minutes of observation. A colorful identification poster is available online and submission on the project website couldn’t be easier.

Butterflies are quite sensitive to changes in the environment and are excellent indicators of potential issues with other wildlife. By studying the trends in butterfly counts, scientists can better understand the relationships between wildlife and the environment.

This is an easy, fun, and meaningful way to engage in science. Print out an identification poster, get outside, and start counting!

Tomatosphere offers students an opportunity to run real scientific experiments and help Canadian scientists study long-term space travel.

Through a comprehensive project curriculum for students in grades 3-10, Tomatosphere aims to inspire students by engaging them in real and meaningful science. Students are charged to monitor and record the germination rate for pre-treated tomato seeds in order to give researchers a better understanding of the long-term viability of growing tomatoes in space. The study is set up as a blind study with a control group of untreated seeds and a group that has undergone exposure to space-like conditions, including low temperatures and pressures. Oh, and you are highly encouraged to eat your final product!

The project provides a wealth of teacher and student resources as well as supplemental curriculum to add valuable extensions to student’s learning. Registration and data submission is easy through the Tomatosphere website.

The Solar Hydrogen Activity Research Kit (SHArK) Project gives you the tools to discover a storable form of solar energy.

Solar energy is the only option for producing the renewable carbon-free power needed to power the planet. However, because the sun doesn't shine at night, it is critical that we develop a method to store the energy for night. Producing hydrogen from sunlight and water is an ideal solution to the storage problem.

The SHArK Project uses the process of photoelectrolysis, whereby certain metal oxides are used with solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Currently, no known stable material is capable of efficiently and inexpensively photoelectrolyzing water with visible light. There are, however, millions of untested compounds that might.

This is where students can take the reigns and contribute to real and meaningful science. The SHArK project provides inexpensive kits that include inkjet printers, laser pointers, and LEGOs® to allow students a fun and engaging way to explore chemistry and contribute potential solutions to the world’s energy problem.

Harness the power of the sun with the SHArK Project!

Do you have an Astronomy Story to tell? Create interactive, narrated tours about your favorite astronomical objects in WorldWide Telescope, and share them with the world.

Solitary bees and wasps in your own backyard!!!

Native Buzz is a citizen science project created by the University of Florida (UF) Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab. Our goal is to learn more about the nesting preferences, diversity and distribution of our native solitary bees and wasps, share the information gained and provide a forum for those interested in participating in the science and art of native beekeeping (and wasp-keeping!).

Here at University of Florida Native Buzz you can keep track of your own native buzz nest site and see the results of other participant’s nest sites.

River otters are ideal ambassadors for habitat preservation and restoration since they are charismatic carnivores reliant on healthy watersheds to thrive. The River Otter Ecology Project strives to build understanding and shed light on the conservation status and ecology of the North American river otter and the ecosystems they inhabit in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our work will serve to fill key gaps in the biology and ecology of these elusive but important aquatic carnivores while also directly engaging the public in their conservation through field-research, environmental education and strategic restoration partnerships.

The North American Bird Phenology Program, part of the USA-National Phenology Network, was a network of volunteer observers who recorded information on first arrival dates, maximum abundance, and departure dates of migratory birds across North America. Active between 1880 and 1970, the program was coordinated by the Federal government and sponsored by the American Ornithologists' Union. It exists now as a historic collection of six million migration card observations, illuminating almost a century of migration patterns and population status of birds. Today, in an innovative project to curate the data and make them publicly available, the records are being scanned and placed on the internet, where volunteers worldwide transcribe these records and add them into a database for analysis.

Planet Hunters is a project from Zooniverse where citizen scientists help astronomers identify new planets.

Through data taken from the Kepler Spacecraft, citizens are helping scientists identify stars with possible planets in the Cygnus constellation. The Spacecraft takes brightness data every thirty minutes from over 150,000 stars so there is a lot to look at.

When planets pass in front of stars, the brightness of that star dips, which shows up on the light curves taken from Kepler. These patterns are not always easily recognized by computer algorithms, and in many cases, the human brain is actually more capable of identifying brightness dips.

How much will the ground shake when your students take part in the Big Cheer on April 27, 2012 at 1:30pm ET (10:30am PT)?

Join the Big Cheer for Science on April 27, 2012 at 1:30 pm ET, presented by SciStarter, Science Cheerleader, USGS, the Iris Consortium, Discover Magazine and the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Anchored at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, this one minute cheer will include plenty of stomping and shaking in an effort to get kids jazzed about science AND measure seismic activity caused by their cheer!

Liven up your classroom with a cheer that students do standing next to their desks.

In Washington, DC, dozens of Science Cheerleaders (scientists and engineers--who also happen to be cheerleaders for the Redskins, Wizards and Ravens among other NFL and NBA teams) will lead a one minute cheer for science with 10,000 students at the DC Convention center. While we're doing the cheer in DC, hundreds of schools across the country will do the same cheer at the same time.

During the cheer, you can have your students record your local ground movement during the Big Cheer and share it with other participating schools for comparison. Comparisons can be further made to how much the ground shakes during the Big Cheer at the Washington D.C. Convention Center and in your classroom and to how much it shakes during an actual earthquake.

To join the Big Cheer, click on the Join In tab above or the "Get Started" button to the right!

To learn about hundreds of other research projects in need of help from the public, check out the SciStarter Project Finder: http://scistarter.com/finder.

GOOOO SCIENCE and ENGINEERING!

FieldScope is a community web-mapping tool that promotes student engagement as citizen scientists and involves them in learning through mapping. By combining easy data integration with powerful mapping visualization, FieldScope is on the cutting edge of community mapping.

The application is accessed online and is requires no installation. Students are able to upload field data photos and other media as well as collaborate with other students and scientists, and perform analysis on existing data. There are many rich projects to choose from, including mapping water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, investigating watershed dynamics, and mapping rivers and streams in the National Parks.

With students able to contribute and interact alongside scientists, meaningful science is sure to happen!

In order to conduct a large-scale survey of urban spiders, we need the help of the public. We are asking people to collect spiders in their homes and gardens, fill out a simple data sheet about their collection, and send or bring the spiders and forms to the Natural History Museum.

In spite of their importance and abundance, we do not know much about the spiders in Los Angeles. There are no truly large collections of urban spiders from this area, as most collectors concentrate on studying natural areas.

As an important international port, new species of spiders from various parts of the world are always being accidentally introduced into the Los Angeles area, and some of these have established breeding populations. We need to know how widespread these introduced species have become, and how they have interacted with the native spiders. Also, we want to know how urbanization and the loss of natural habitat has affected populations and distributions of naturally occurring spiders.

In the late 1990′s, bee biologists started to notice a decline in the abundance and distribution of several wild bumble bee species. Three of these species (western bumble bee, rusty patched bumble bee, yellowbanded bumble bee) were once very common and important crop pollinators over their ranges. Franklin’s bumble bee was historically found only in a small area in southern Oregon and northern California, and it may now be extinct. A recent study led by Sydney Cameron, Ph.D., has also drawn attention to a rapid decline of the American bumble bee.

We are very interested in tracking the status of these five bumble bee species and finding out where current populations are situated. If you have seen any of these bees please send us a photo. If you are interested in finding out more, would like to see the historical distribution of these bumble bees, or would like to know how to identify them, please visit our website.

We are also interested in collecting information about bumble bee nesting habits. Please let us know if you have found one.

The Wolbachia Project brings real-world biology research into high school and undergraduate classrooms to empower students with science.

Mission

The four core goals of this initiative are:

1. Engage citizen scientists in nature and real-world research

2. Encourage international participation in the collection of new scientific data on Wolbachia bacteria that live inside insects and other arthropods

3. Enhance interest in science through an integrative lab series spanning biodiversity to molecular biology

4. Give people an idea of what it's like to be a scientist.

Outline:

In this integrative lab series, you will collect insects and other arthropods in your local area, identify the organism using an online key, extract DNA from the animal, use biotechnology techniques to test for the presence of Wolbachia bacteria in your samples. You will also be able to send your sample to a research institute that will sequence the Wolbachia DNA so you can do a bioinformatic / phylogenetic analysis of the Wolbachia symbiont.

Students and teachers will gain hands on experience undertaking field work led by a team of experienced scientists from CSIRO. A comprehensive website is available (teachwild.org.au) to further student learning and to provide a unique, protected environment in which students and teachers can connect with other schools across the country to share their experiences. Also, students can continue their monitoring program without the assistance of our staff.

Your school will be provided with access to the Australian Biosecurity Intelligence Network (ABIN) and our Teach Wild secure community space. This community space will be kept up to date with innovative information about marine debris.

The activities have been developed to ensure part of the key learning areas in Science, Maths and Geography in the Australian Curriculum are achieved for years 6‐12.

Bumble bees are important pollinators, and science needs YOUR help to conserve them. You can contribute to our knowledge of bumble bees and their lives all over the world. Your contribution will tell us about which bumble bees live where, the flowers they visit, and when they're active during the year.

The photo group is administered by Athena Rayne Anderson, a doctoral candidate in Ecology at the University of Georgia, and author of the website.

EyeWire is a citizen science project aimed at mapping the neural connections of the retina. All you have to do is play a relaxing and absorbing game of coloring brain images!

In the game, participants reconstruct the tree-like shapes of the neurons in the retina. By tracing branches throughout images, you can help the computer develop 3-D reconstructions of the neurons.

Anyone can participate – you don’t need any specialized knowledge of neuroscience – and your contributions will help scientists understand how the brain functions. In addition, engineers will also use your input to improve the computational technology that powers the game. This will eventually lead to making software that can detect brain abnormalities that are related to disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

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

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.

The School of Ants project is a citizen-scientist driven study of the ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. Collection kits are available to anyone interested in participating.

Teachers, students, parents, kids, junior-scientists, senior citizens and enthusiasts of all stripes are involved in collecting ants in schoolyards and backyards using a standardized protocol so that project coordinators can make detailed maps of the wildlife that lives just outside their doorsteps.

The maps that are created with these data are telling us quite a lot about native and introduced ants in cities, not just here in North Carolina, but across the United States and, as this project grows, about the ants of the world!

In the Health Tracking Network, people across the world work together to monitor common illnesses and discover factors related to illness.

When you join the Health Tracking Network, you:
* spend 2-3 minutes per week answering questions about cold and flu symptoms and other topics;
* earn money for charities of your choice; and
* can track your own health, fitness, or anything of interest to you with separate tracking tools.

The Health Tracking Network has no ads, and participation is free and completely anonymous.

We seek volunteers from across the world. You must be 18 years or older to participate.

Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) is an online, experimental reporting system for reporting and sharing the sightings of sick or dead wildlife.

Individual reports viewed together can lead to the detection and containment of wildlife disease outbreaks that may pose a health risk to people, domestic animals and other wildlife. For smart phone users, the HealthMap mobile phone application, Outbreaks Near Me, is also available. It captures the same information that the web-based WHER application collects and allows users to upload photos. WHER hopes to harness the power of the many eyes of the public to better detect wildlife disease phenomenon.

Additionally, WHER was developed by the Wildlife Data Integration Network (WDIN), a program of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in partnership with the USGS National Wildlife Health Center.

CitSci.org is a platform that supports a variety of citizen science programs using a centralized database to store and deliver science data, with a focus on community based monitoring programs. This platform allows program coordinators to create their own projects and datasheets, manage members, define measurements, create analyses, and even write feedback forms.

The Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford is building a sound map of the world as part of a new study into how sounds in our everyday environment make us feel. We need your help!

We’re asking people across the world to use our new iOS app on their iPhones or iPads (or any recorder) to record short clips from different sound environments, or "soundscapes"--anything from the inside of a family car to a busy shopping centre. Then we ask volunteers to comment on their soundscapes and upload them to our virtual soundscape map.

Recordings and responses will be analyaed by acoustic scientists, and significant findings will be reported on this website.

Sound Around You aims to raise awareness of how our soundscape influences us, and could have far reaching implications for professions and social groups ranging from urban planners to house buyers.

The Great Lakes Worm Watch needs citizen scientists to conduct earthworm surveys in forests and other habitats anywhere in North America.

Earthworms are not native to the Great Lakes Region; they were all wiped out after the last glaciation. The current population, brought here by early Europeans, is slowly changing the face of our native forests, but very little is known about the distributions of earthworm and earthworm species across the region. While valuable, this type of information is labor-intensive, and it is difficult for researchers to get funding to do this kind of work. Citizen scientists can help.

There are several ways to get involved:

1. Document earthworm occurrences: This involves collecting and sending earthworm specimens with location information to Great Lakes Worm Watch. These specimens will be archived at the University of Minnesota, and the species and location information will be added to the project database.

2. Collect habitat data: Great Lakes Worm Watch would like data from all habitat types, especially natural ecosystems like forests, woodlands, and prairies. In addition, data from habitats dominated by human activity are also of value, such as farm fields, pastures, and parks. Depending on your level of interest and expertise, you can choose to conduct a general or detailed habitat survey. You can use the instructions and data sheets developed by the project coordinators to make the data easily transferable to the database.

3. Conduct soil surveys: In addition to earthworm and habitat data, Great Lakes Worm Watch is also interested in getting data about the soil conditions at sites in which you sampled for earthworms. You can use the instructions and data sheet developed by project coordinators to make the data easily transferable to the database.

Get started! Anyone can make a BIG difference when it comes to containing the spread of exotic earthworms!

The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project enlists citizen scientists to collect long-term data on larval monarch populations and milkweed habitat.

Developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota, the project aims to better understand how and why monarch populations vary in time and space, with a focus on monarch distribution and abundance during the breeding season in North America.

As a volunteer, you can participate in two ways: You can commit to regularly monitoring a specific patch of milkweed or you can submit anecdotal observations. If you commit to regular monitoring, you'll conduct weekly monarch and milkweed surveys, measuring per plant densities of monarch eggs and larvae. You'll also be able to participate in more detailed optional activities, such as measuring parasitism rates and milkweed quality. Your contributions will aid in conserving monarchs and their threatened migratory phenomenon, and will advance our understanding of butterfly ecology in general.

In addition to contributing to an understanding of monarch biology, you'll gain hands-on experience in scientific research. Through this experience, we hope that your appreciation and understanding of monarchs, monarch habitat, and the scientific process are enhanced.

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, 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 Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, which runs a citizen science project to record precipitation measurements in an online database.

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.

Celebrate Urban Birds provides an opportunity for everyone across the country to watch birds and participate in activities focused on birds and neighborhood habitat improvement.

Participants learn about 16 species of birds and watch an area about the size of half a basketball court for 10 minutes to see if they can find any of those birds. Urban Bird Celebration provides all of the necessary materials to get you started.

An important part of the celebration is to help scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology collect information about the 16 key species of urban birds. The scientists have created a project that will use data collected from participants in the celebration to study these resident and migratory birds - their numbers, their behavior, their interaction with the urban habitat.

Join us in the search for interstellar dust! On January 15, 2006, the Stardust spacecraft's sample return capsule parachuted gently onto the Utah desert. Nestled within the capsule were precious particles collected during Stardust's dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 in January of 2004; and something else, even rarer and no less precious: tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away. They are the first such pristine particles ever collected in space, and scientists are eagerly waiting for their chance to "get their hands" on them.

Before they can be studied, though, these tiny interstellar grains will have to be found. This will not be easy. Unlike the thousand of particles of varying sizes collected from the comet, scientists estimate that Stardust collected only around 45 interstellar dust particles. They are tiny - only about a micron (a millionth of a meter) in size! These miniscule particles are embedded in an aerogel collector 1,000 square centimeters in size. To make things worse, the collector plates are interspersed with flaws, cracks, and an uneven surface. All this makes the interstellar dust particles extremely difficult to locate.

This is where you come in!

By asking for help from talented volunteers like you from all over the world, we can do this project in months instead of years. Of course, we can't invite hundreds of people to our lab to do this search-we only have two microscopes! To find the elusive particles , therefore, we are using an automated scanning microscope to automatically collect images of the entire Stardust interstellar collector at the Curatorial Facility at Johnson Space Center in Houston. We call these stacks of images focus movies. All in all there will be nearly a million such focus movies. These are available to Stardust@home users like you around the world. You can then view them with the aid of a special Virtual Microscope (VM) that works in your web browser.

Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth!

In recognition of the critical importance of the Stardust@home volunteers, the discoverer of an interstellar dust particle will appear as a co-author on any scientific paper by the Stardust@home team announcing the discovery of the particle. The discoverer will also have the privilege of naming the particle!

Physics Songs aims to be the world's premier website devoted to collecting and organizing all songs about physics. It is managed by Walter F. Smith, Professor of Physics at Haverford College.

Songs about physics can help students to remember critical concepts and formulas, but perhaps more importantly they communicate the lesson that physics can be fun. They certainly help to establish an informal classroom atmosphere, in which even shy students are willing to ask questions.

The songs may also activate a different part of the students' brains.

Stellar Classification Online Public Exploration needs the help of citizen scientists to observe and classify stars never before classified. The goal is to mine data from photographic images of star spectra, which result from light absorption in the outer surface of a star. Star spectra are made available online where citizen scientists can compare them to stars with known spectra.

Don't wait--be the first to classify one of hundreds of thousands of stars that have never been seen before!