Category: Ocean & Water

This is a guest post by Monaca Noble, a biologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s Marina Invasions Laboratory. For the last 10 years, Ms. Noble has worked on issues related to the transport of marine species in ballast water and the introduced parasite Loxothylacus panopaei. This June, 49 enthusiastic volunteers came out to search […]

  This is a guest post by Michael Bear Citizen Science Project Director at Ocean Sanctuaries.  In this post, he describes a citizen science led effort to catalog marine life living in and around the HMCS Yukon. In 2000, the Yukon was transformed into an artificial reef as part of San Diego’s  marine conservation effort.   In 2000, […]

Keep track of water quality and learn about environmental stewardship with Stream Team. Looking for more water monitoring projects?  We’ve got you covered! Spencer Towle is a senior at Cate School in Carpinteria. As we walk down to a bioswale on the campus, this San Francisco native with a head of unruly brown hair describes […]

Monitor the quality and quantity of Wisconsin’s streams with Water Action Volunteers. Interested in water monitoring projects? We’ve got you covered!   Human uses of the land impact the quality and quantity of waters in local streams, which in turn, can affect our recreational activities such as fishing, boating and swimming, and our drinking water quality. […]

Look back at two shark citizen science projects featured on the SciStarter blog. Want to learn about and protect sharks? We’ve got you covered!   Sharks often get a bad rap; they’re featured in the media as dangerous killers that prey upon helpless human beings and animals.  Although shark attacks occur, they are rare; and attempts […]

Connect with others and learn about basking sharks with the New England Basking Shark project. Want to learn about and protect sharks?  We’ve got you covered! With abundant jellyfish and other gelatinous critters, the New England area is always a trendy place for a basking shark to go for a meal after a long day travelling. […]

A new citizen science project invites volunteers to help study insect diversity in the Grand Canyon. Every night when she’s on the water, Gibney Siemion, a river expedition guide in the Grand Canyon, crouches at the edge of the Colorado River right on the line where the sand turns from wet to dry. Her equipment […]

Turn your beach visit into marine ecology research on worldwide jellyfish populations. Looking for more summertime citizen science projects? Find them here. Between 2012 and 2013, power plants in Israel, Sweden, Scotland, Japan, and the U.S. were shut down unexpectedly, all for the same reason: jellyfish. Blooms of jellyfish abundantly swarmed in coastal waters and clogged […]

What lives along New Zealand’s shoreline? Find out, one square metre at a time, with Marine Metre Squared. Looking for more summertime citizen science projects? Find them here. Every now and again I come across a citizen science project that inspires me. Don’t get me wrong—most of the people I interview, whether they are counting […]

Share jellyfish sightings, track stars during evening beach strolls, count fireflies, or report dragonfly swarms while you’re at the beach this summer. Or participate in dozens of other summertime citizen science projects and advance fields of research in the process! Why not do them all? Hey! If you’re involved in more than one project, we’d […]