Smartphones aren’t just for games and checking your email anymore! Today, these mobile devices can be used to better the world around us by helping scientists understand more about it. Thanks to the distribution of mobiles research can be crowd-sourced to provide information that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Below is one of ten ways that you can use your phone to make the world a little better:
5. Inventory your Local Wildlife
The goal of Project NOAH (Networked Organisms and Habitats) is pretty ambitious: “build the go-to platform for documenting all the world’s organisms.†Their app has two modes. “Spottings†lets you take photos of plants and animals you see, categorize and describe them and then submit the data for viewing on NOAH’s website and use by researchers for population and distribution studies.Don’t know what you’re looking at? Check a box when you submit your photo and other users and scientists can help you identify the species. You can also use the location-based field guides to see other users’ Spottings near your location and learn more about your local wildlife. “Field Missions†let you help out with crowdsourced data collection for specific studies that labs have submitted to NOAH. You might be asked to photograph invasive beetles near your home, or log GPS coordinates when migrating flocks of birds pass over you, and if discovering wildlife and helping scientists isn’t enough motivation, completing missions also earns you cool badges in the app. Project NOAH is available for free for iOS and Android devices