rity of Europe as well as provide your own feedback.
Eye on Earth represents a partnership between Microsoft and the European Environmental Agency. It includes information on the water quality for more than 22,000 bathing sites throughout Europe. It also includes information on air quality for more than 1,000 air quality monitoring stations throughout Europe.
Over five years, the site will grow to include information on many other environmental topics and turn into a global observatory for environmental change. It will broaden the thematic spectrum of environmental information by integrating prominent environmental challenges of our times, such as ground level ozone and other forms of air pollution, oil sills, biodiversity, and coastal erosion.
Join the fun!
EteRNA is the first-ever global laboratory where scientists, educators, students, online gamers, and any human being with a strong interest in unlocking the mystery of life will collectively help solve world's biggest scientific problems.
RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a substance that our cells use to translate and express genetic information from our DNA. We now know that folding and shape-shifting allows RNA and its partners to control the cell in a predictable fashion. However, the full biological and medical implications of these discoveries are still being worked out.
By playing EteRNA, you will help extend and curate the first large scale library of synthetic RNA designs. You play by designing RNAs, tiny molecules at the heart of every cell. If you win the weekly competition your RNA is synthesized and scored by how well it folds. Your efforts will help us understand, dissect, and control the functional properties of real and designed RNAs from bacteria, viruses, and our own cells. Join the global laboratory!
North Carolina Sea Turtle Project
The North Carolina Sea Turtle Project trains volunteers to monitor sea turtle activity along the entire coast of North Carolina.
There are a number of ways that your citizen science efforts can help protect sea turtles in North Carolina. Volunteers are needed to:
- walk small sections of beach each morning from May to August to look for turtle tracks and nests
All the data collected by the project are organized and disseminated to the state and federal agencies that use the information to make management decisions.
The North Carolina Sea Turtle Project, run by the state Wildlife Resources Commission's Division of Wildlife Management, is committed to monitoring North Carolina's sea turtle population. The project would not be possible without the help of hundreds of volunteers!
Mountain Watch: Adopt-A-Peak
Adopt-A-Peak volunteers agree to visit a peak or trail section in the Appalachian Mountains periodically during the growing season. Volunteers will help track long-term trends in plant flowering, fall foliage, and visibility conditions on the mountain they adopt.
Hikers are great resources for frequent reporting from remote areas that could not be observed otherwise. Adopt-A-Peak focuses our monitoring efforts on a specific location year after year. Volunteers are needed for forest and alpine flower monitoring from late May through August, but this effort intensifies in June, which is Flower Watch Month. Fall foliage monitoring can begin as early as September and go through the end of leaf drop.
Visibility is monitored on every visit by taking a photograph. Volunteers are encouraged to monitor both plants and visibility.
Individuals, school groups, outing clubs, flower groups: Adopt-A-Peak!
Mountain Watch: Visibility Reporting
By participating in Mountain Watch's Visibility Reporting, you become an important part of understanding how haze pollution affects mountain views and the recreational experience. Volunteers provide their opinion of whether visibility on a hike through the Appalachian Mountains, from Maine to Virginia, was "acceptable" or "unacceptable." These observations provide resource managers with information on the value of clear views to the hiking public.
Poor air quality in the eastern United States directly