A Picture Saves 1,000 Streams – Water Quality Monitoring on Your Smartphone

This post is part of this week’s featured projects about water quality monitoring. Take a look! Despite over 70% of the Earth’s surface being covered in water, one in nine people do not have access to an improved water source.(1) Contaminated water kills more people than all wars, crimes and terrorism combined yet more people … Read more “A Picture Saves 1,000 Streams – Water Quality Monitoring on Your Smartphone”

Categories: Apps, Citizen Science, Climate & Weather, Ecology & Environment, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water

Monitoring Water Quality

This post is part of this week’s  featured projects about water quality monitoring. Take a look! Clean water. We all need it. It is necessary for human health, food security, economic growth, and preservation of natural habitats. Sadly, human activity often threatens water quality. Tracking water quality is a crucial step is maintaining safe water. … Read more “Monitoring Water Quality”

Categories: Citizen Science

The Secchi Dip-In

Calling all water monitoring groups! It is time for the annual Secchi Dip-In. From now until July 22, volunteer and professional water monitoring groups are being asked to take transparency measurements in a local body of water. A secchi disk is a common tool for measuring water turbidity, or water cloudiness. Turbidity is caused by … Read more “The Secchi Dip-In”

Categories: Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Geology & Earth Sciences, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water

Are you up to the (water) challenge, today?

When you wake up in the morning and start your daily routine—take a shower, brush your teeth, cook breakfast—do you ever stop to wonder where all that water you’re using comes from? It’s availability (or lack thereof) is certainly not a common worry in the United States, where as of 2005 (the latest assessment of … Read more “Are you up to the (water) challenge, today?”

Categories: Biology, Citizen Science, Contest, Do-It-Yourself, Ecology & Environment, Health, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water, Science Education Standards

Studying Dragonfly Swarms with Citizen Science

In July of 2009, a friend and I arrived at a lake to collect water samples for work. We had worked at the lake many times, but something was different that day: several hundred dragonflies were flying over the grass. We often saw dragonflies, but there were 50 times the usual number and they weren’t … Read more “Studying Dragonfly Swarms with Citizen Science”

Categories: Animals, Biology, Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Guest Contributor, In the News, Insects, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water

Citizen scientists make a difference in the San Juans

Up north, in Washington State’s tranquil San Juan Islands, members of the Kwiáht marine research team are hard at work keeping an eye on local sea life and terrestrial critters. Kwiaht, a word in the Coast Salish dialect, refers to a place that is physically healthy and spiritually clean. The group hopes to ensure the … Read more “Citizen scientists make a difference in the San Juans”

Categories: Animals, Bats, Chemistry, Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water