Become a Citizen Scientist Today!
What is Citizen Science?
Citizen Science is research conducted with the help of volunteers. Often a researcher or organization looking to answer a scientific question will need help, whether it’s counting critters to guide conservation action and assess population health, reporting invasive species, documenting biodiversity or more!
Learn how anyone can contribute to scientific research and development.
Local Initiatives
Tawatinaw Watershed Working Group
The Tawatinaw Watershed Working Group now has a Water Rangers page! If you’d like to learn more about the group and how you can be involved in contributing to water quality onitoring along the Tawatinaw River, check out our Tawatinaw Watershed Working Group Page.
Alberta Lake Management Society
Did you know that you can help to monitor lakes year round? ALMS has both a Summer and Winter LakeKeepers program! Volunteering with ALMS will allow you to learn how to collect water quality data, and enable you to go out to your local lake and start sampling.
Alberta Volunteer Amphibian Monitoring Program
The Alberta Volunteer Amphibian Monitoring Program is an Alberta-wide initiative established in 1992 as a long-term community survey of amphibians. Volunteers with this program submit amphibian observations and their locations, as well as incidental reptile observations.
Living Lakes Canada: Lake Blitz
Living Lakes Canada hosts an annual Lake Blitz where volunteers across Canada help create a ‘snapshot’ of lake health by collecting temperature readings at their chosen lake and shoreline photos of their location and the colour of the water. Keep an eye out on their website for when Lake Blitz 2024 opens!
International Citizen Science Initiatives
eBird: If you’re a birder, you can catalogue all the birds you heard or saw after entering where, when and how you went birding. eBird observations can help inform conservation decisions and research!
HerpMapper: This citizen science initiative is designed to collect information on reptiles and amphibians around the world.
iNaturalist: On iNaturalist, you can report observations of any organisms: plants, animals, bugs, and any other critters! Findings get shared with scientific data repositories.