Outside

Project Goal: 
Track the status of five bumble bee species to determine whether their population is in decline and where current populations live.
Your Role: 
Create habitat that bumble bees prefer, report activity near nesting sites.
Project Goal: 
Track and conserve North America's native bumble bee population.
Your Role: 
Learn how to identify and find bumble bees, photograph them and report your observations. You can go one further and create ideal habitat for bees, stop using pesticides and spread the word.
Project Goal: 
Determine: which pollinators are most important to rare plants; which pollinators influence the evolution of floral traits; and which pollinators are most important for increasing crop yield.
Your Role: 
Locate a patch of spring beauty (Claytonia virginica or Claytonia caroliniana), observe the flowers for pollinator activity, record your data over the course of 3 - 4 weeks while the flowers are in bloom and submit your results.
Project Goal: 
Gather information about urban, suburban and rural bee populations to assess the status of bee populations and the impact that a decline could have on the pollination of flowering plants.
Your Role: 
Observe sunflowers for pollinator activity, records your observations and submit your data to the website.
Project Goal: 
Assess whether pollination by bees is in decline and if climate change is causing a mismatch between bloom times and pollination.
Your Role: 
Find bees and document them with photographs, GPS location, a description of the habitat and additional details about the environment. Visit the Bee Hunt! website for details, and upload your data.
Project Goal: 
Document the distribution of whales, dolphins and sea turtles to better understand their biology and support conservation decision making.
Your Role: 
Document your GPS location, data about the animals and take photographs or video.
Project Goal: 
Use photography of whales to identify individuals and document their movements.
Your Role: 
On your next kayaking, sailing or boating expedition be sure to photograph the underside of humback whale tails.
Project Goal: 
Understand the history and ecology of fungi that live on insect exoskeletons.
Your Role: 
Collect a few beetle specimens in ethanol while visiting a snowline during your next adventure.
Project Goal: 
Determine how lichen evolved and got distributed throughout the world.
Your Role: 
Travel to mountain tops or wherever tundra grows and collect samples of one particular species of lichen (Thamnolia vermicularis).
Project Goal: 
Identify the major sources of microplastics and their toxicity.
Your Role: 
Collect a sample of marine water from anywhere on Earth.

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