10 Awesome Science Projects You Can Participate In

Cities at Night is asking people to catalogue images of Earth taken (you guessed it, at night) from the International Space Station. A lot of the pictures that need to be sorted need to be done by humans instead of computers, and hundreds of volunteers have classified more than 20,000 images already.

If you’re looking for a challenge, you can head online to help categorize the calls made by killer whales and pilot whales (which confusingly, are both dolphin species). You’ll need to decide if the recorded sound is for communication, orientation or foraging under water.

Lionfish were first seen in the South Atlantic in 1985 and have since spread to other locations other than their native Indo-Pacific habitat. Their introduction to the area has caused an 80 percent decline in native fish population. So, if you’re out snorkeling and see any, be sure to report it to help save the population.

If you ever visit Mt. Diablo State Park in California, you’ll notice L-brackets that have been installed along trails. Scientists want you to attach your camera to them, take a picture and then share on social media so they can see the changing of the landscape post wildfires.

You can do this one right from your computer. Check out images of penguins from one of the 50 cameras set up through the Southern Ocean and Antarctic Peninsula and help identify individual penguins, chicks and eggs. Very little is actually known about the birds, so you can really help build the knowledge about them.

Like a canary in a coal mine, the alpine plants along the Appalachian Trail act as a very good indicator of some very small changes in climate change. Scientists are hoping next time you’re out there, you’ll help them out by documenting what you see.

Yards are interesting pieces of land, because they generally are covered in non native plants. You can map your own yard to help scientists understand how these habitats support birds.

Some scientists believe free-ranging domestic cats may be kill up to 4 billion birds and between 6 and 22 billion mammals each year. To try and get a better idea of just what the cats are up to, you can get a GPS harness for your kitty and let it loose for five days, then upload all the information to Cat Tracker.

To take part in this assignment, you’ll have to head to the Gulf of Mexico to go fishing, which we know, is a very hard task. You can volunteer to tag fish you catch for TAG Louisiana. You may also catch a tagged fish, and if you do you can return the tag, and possibly win a prize.

If you’re looking for a historical science project, you can check out the logs of ships from the mid-19th century to read the weather observations contained in them, and then record it. The results will help track weather patterns of the past to better create future models.