The SIREN Project

Location: Online

Topics include: Ocean Conditions

The collection of hydrological data in Italy has been managed at the national level by the National Hydrological and Mareographic Service (SIMN) since early 1900. The dismantlement of the SIMN, performed about 30 years ago, resulted in data collection being transferred to a regional level. This change has determined problems in the availability of complete and homogeneous data for the whole country. Historical hydrological measurements are usually available only in the printed version of the Hydrological Yearbooks and limited efforts have been spent to digitize this collection. Within the SIREN (Saving Italian hydRological mEasuremeNts) project we aim to digitize these data by crowd-sourcing the recovery of hydrological measurements from historical Hydrological Yearbooks to produce a consistent dataset.

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The Koster seafloor observatory

Location: Online

Topics include: Marine Life; Litter

Explore the Kosterhavets National Park, Sweden’s first marine national park: from your sofa, and help scientists at the Koster Seafloor Observatory discover the species, habitats, and even litter found there

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Seal Spotter

Location: Online

Topics include: Seals

Australian fur seals play an important role in Australia's marine ecosystems, particularly around Phillip Island. To better understand them, we need your help. SealSpotter allows anyone with a computer to help with the management and protection of our oceans by counting seals in images captured with a UAV (a.k.a 'drone'). This allows Nature Parks scientists to analyse seal population and marine debris entanglement data faster and more accurately, leading to a greater understanding of their world and the threats they face.

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SeabirdWatch

Location: Online

Topics include: Seabirds

The world's seabirds are in decline, but some species are doing well in some areas, but poorly in others. There are big, technical difficulties in studying seabird colonies at large scales. However, if we can monitor many colonies at the same time and analyze the data rapidly, we can identify which threats are important and encourage policy makers to act.

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Penguin Watch

Location: Online

Topics include: Penguins

Welcome to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean! Penguins - globally loved, but under threat. Research shows that in some regions, penguin populations are in decline; but why? Click "get started" to begin monitoring penguins, and help us answer this question. With over 100 sites to explore, we need your help now more than ever!

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Penguin Detective

Location: Online

Topics include: Penguins

Over the last several years, penguin biologists have been working hard to find all the penguin colonies in Antarctica using satellite imagery. However, the massive expanse of the continent and the challenges of finding each last penguin colony leave many likely undiscovered. This is where you can help! This short guide is intended to walk you through the basics of penguin colony detective work using Google Earth. Understanding what you are seeing in satellite imagery takes some practice, but with some patience, you too can join the online expedition to find all of Antarctica's penguins.

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OceanEYEs

Location: Online

Topics include: Fish

NOAA scientists need your help to count fish and improve data used in management of the Hawaiʻi “Deep 7” bottomfish fishery! NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center deploys stereo-camera systems on the seafloor to help monitor populations of deep-water snappers and groupers. The local commercial fishery in Hawaiʻi targets these fish primarily. Each camera can record tens of thousands of images! Human observers annotate the images to count and measure each species. This can take months using only a small team of researchers. With your help, we can speed up the work and train machine vision algorithms to improve our analysis. This will make us one step closer to improving fish stock assessments, which are used by fishery managers!

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NeMO-Net

Location: Online

Topics include: Coral Reefs

NeMO-Net is a single player iPad game where players help NASA classify coral reefs by painting 3D and 2D images of coral. Players can rate the classifications of other players and level up in the food chain as they explore and classify coral reefs and other shallow marine environments and creatures from locations all over the world!

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Iguanas from Above

Location: Online

Topics include: Marine Iguanas

Marine Iguanas need your help! Help us count Galapagos Marine Iguanas from aerial photographs so we can save these awesome animals from extinction! Marine iguanas are threatened by invasive species, pollution, and climate change. We are collecting the first good comprehensive population size estimates for this endangered species. To do this, we use drones to collect images of the Galapagos coastlines. From these images, we will count the iguanas to estimate their number in different locations. From these estimates, we can make a solid plan to protect them. And by helping us count them, you are directly contributing to saving this awesome species!

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eOceans

Location: online

Topics include: Marine Life

Through monumental collaboration with ocean allies, like you, we activate informed decisions for impactful action. By uniting people, communities, and their observations with real-time analyses, our goal is to help society quickly detect and respond to change — to overcome the Shifting Baseline Syndrome and swiftly restore ocean health. We use the eOceans® mobile app and analytics platform to make it happen.

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Cetalingua Project

Location: online

Topics include: Dolphins; Whales; Manatees

Do dolphins have “language?” What is the meaning of a humpback’s song? What information does a manatee call convey? Marine mammal acoustic communication is extremely diverse, complex, and many species have neural wiring supporting a potentially sophisticated communication system. Yet in the absence of “Rosetta Stone,” our efforts to decode it have been challenging. Our approach to decoding marine mammal communication is to use large datasets, both audio and video, to analyze behaviors and calls produced by marine mammals in search for individual variation, call categories, and sequential information. This data will be eventually used to conduct the playback experiment to establish the potential function or “meaning” of the call. Understanding form and function of marine mammal communication goes well beyond the quest of whether or not dolphins have “language,” as it has practical conservation benefits: tracking individuals via passive acoustics, warning boaters about the presence of manatees or whales, and using acoustics to evaluate a marine mammal’s health, activities and crucial habitats.

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Beluga Bits

Location: online

Topics include: Beluga whales

Researchers at Assiniboine Park Zoo are interested in the social structure and natural history of the beluga that visit the Churchill River in Northern Manitoba, Canada. During the summer thousands of beluga whales visit the estuary and at that time. www.Explore.org runs a live streaming underwater video from a zodiac that people around the world can view. During the beluga season (July and August) we ask viewers to capture snapshots when they see the undersides of beluga and when they see marked beluga. From those photos we can tell if the animal is male or female. We can tell the approximate age - if it is an calf, a subadult (grey), or an adult (white). Using marks (scars or pigments) we identify individual whales. However each season thousands of photos are captured and we are looking for help classifying them for analysis.

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