To protect biodiversity, we need to know more about it. Academy scientists travel the globe in their efforts to learn more, but they can’t be everywhere—we need your help!
Citizen scientists' collective observations of plants and animals, wherever they're found, are beginning to creating an important global record: what biodiversity is found where, how healthy populations are, and what's changing in the environment. By crowd-sourcing this kind of data collection and analysis, the citizen science movement helps science to answer some of the biggest questions we face today.
All of the projects we work on are grounded in connecting communities to nature and protecting local diversity. We aim to better understand our world in order to work toward policy change, all while supporting a local community of naturalists.
Learn more about our Bay Area projects, biodiversity surveys, and grassroots bioblitzes—what we've found, why we're looking, and how to get involved.
Join us for a grassroots bioblitz! We gather at local parks to find and document as many species as possible.
The City Nature Challenge is a bioblitz-style event where people around the world join together to make and share observations of nature in and around cities. Interested in helping us document the Bay Area's incredible biodiversity as part of this global movement? Join us!
Snapshot Cal Coast is a California statewide effort to document our coastal biodiversity and create a "snapshot" in time of where species are located along our coast. So dig out your rubber boots and come join us in the tidepools!
To sign up, click here
Our bioblitzes are powered by iNaturalist, our in-house, citizen science platform. It's a community-powered website and app that makes it easy to upload and share your observations in the field and to get help from other users with flora and fauna IDs.
Have questions about our citizen science programs? Want to get involved? Email us at citizenscience@calacademy.org.
Academy citizen science is led by Rebecca Johnson, Alison Young, and Annie Miller.
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As a leading scientific institution and trusted community space, we remain committed to following the recommendations of public health authorities. At this time, the museum remains closed in order to ensure the health and safety of all guests, volunteers, and staff.