Count the birds! – Get Outside!

It is time for some Citizen Science!

What is Citizen Science?

Scientists have a limited amount of time and money to collect data. With help from members of the general public, known as citizen scientists, researchers are able to crowd source data collection collecting more data from more places helping them find answers to real-world questions.

Watch this short video to learn more!

Want to become a citizen scientist? Here is a great citizen science project you can do this weekend and it will only take 15 minutes!

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Starting today, Friday, February 12^th until Monday, February 15^th you are invited to join tens of thousands of other citizen scientists from around the world counting birds! All it takes is 15 minutes! Just count the birds you see and report them. It is that easy!

Check out the birds that have already been counted!

This project began in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. In 2019 over 200,000 people in 100 countries participated and counting over 6,800 species of birds.

The data collected from the Great Backyard Bird Count helps scientist learn more about bird populations including population fluctuation, migration timing, and effects of climate change. This is extremely important as birds are great indicator species or species whose status provides information about the overall condition of an ecosystem and of other species in that ecosystem. North America we have seen significant decline in bird population in the past 50 years!