Are you curious and persistent? Then you would make a great Citizen Scientist. If your passion is observing nature, you might want to consider becoming a Citizen Scientist through a program like the National Phenology Network (USA-NPN).
Nature’s Notebook is a national, online program where amateur and professional naturalists regularly record observations of plants and animals to generate long-term data sets used for scientific discovery and decision-making.
Phenology is the study of recurring life-cycle events such as the flowering of plants and animal migration. Monitoring the changes to life cycle events is very important for addressing applied environmental issues. The data collected are a simple measure that anyone can do to add to the overall understanding of changes to life cycles of local plants and animals. A national network was set up in 2007 to make more data available for a larger variety of plants and animals to assist scientists.
The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) monitors the influence of climate on the phenology of plants, animals, and landscapes. They do this by encouraging people to observe phenological events like leaf out, flowering, migrations, and egg laying, and by providing a place for people to enter, store, and share their observations. Timing of life cycle events for plants and animals helps predict things like the timing of allergy season and other important processes that impact us.
It is fun for all ages! Information on monitoring and determining life cycles is available on line to make it easy to record. Become a Citizen Scientist today and provide valuable data to help create a more sustainable future.
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