Help Track Climate Change in Your Backyard!

Do you keep track of when the robins come back each spring? I started jotting notes on my Weather Calendar each year for when I saw the first bluebird or heard the first spring peeper.

Now, there's an opportunity for all of us to send in our nature notes to a Web site that will track all of our data nationwide. It's a great opportunity to see what might be changing over the years by enlisting an army of citizen volunteers.

It's easy to sign up (I just did it). Go to http://www.usanpn.org/?q=content/participate and sign up. They provide a list of the plants that they'd like you to monitor.

What they're looking for is when do leave emerge, flowers open and fruits ripen.

They'll be adding more features in the future, like a place to upload any phenology data that you've recorded over the years. That will be posted along with Aldo Leopold's data!

They'll also be adding more species of plants and animals in the future.

So turn that hobby into a contribution to science!