Earth Challenge 2020

Globe sculpture at El Yunque National Forest’s El Portal Visitor Center.

A new citizen science initiative has just been announced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Challenge 2020 hopes to engage millions of cats like us from all over this globe we call home to help the earth make it out alive.

The first step in the process is happening now. The organizers are currently asking all of us to submit research questions about environmental and human health. Some sample questions they list on their website are:

How much plastic is in my water?

What is the biodiversity of my region?

How does air quality impact the health of my community?

To submit your questions, you can use the form on their website (link above), or tweet @Earth_Challenge using the hashtag #EC2020. You can submit as many questions as you can think up, but the deadline is November 22, 2018.

Organizers will then distill the questions down into common themes, and their expert panel will announce the final questions in early 2019. Hackathons will be held in spring of 2019 to develop applications and technology solutions to collect and synthesize the information needed to answer the chosen questions. The best solutions will be formally developed during the summer and fall of 2019.

WHACK FACT: Hackathons are huge collaborative events where computer programmers, software designers, graphic designers and others get together to develop applications in a short period of time.

Citizen scientists like me and you will use these apps to collect data in the spring of 2020, with the goal of collecting over one billion data points around the globe by Earth Day 2020 (April 22).

Now go submit your questions!

Clean Coastal Trash and Help Scientists!

So much garbage! We were unprepared, but improvised with dog poo bags. Note to self, bring bags and gloves everywhere!

A lot of people around the world participate in International Coastal Cleanup® Day in September of each year.  Sadly, cleanup is needed year round. There are several efforts out there, such as the Take 3 for the Sea campaign.  

This organization urges you to take 3 pieces of trash with you every time you leave an ocean or waterway (or anywhere, really), share a photo of you with your three pieces on social media with the hashtag #Take3fortheSea to inspire others, and reduce your plastic footprint.

While you’re participating in Take 3 for the Sea, why not also use the CleanSwell app?  You can see the impact you’re making by tracking things such as miles cleaned and weight of trash removed while earning cool badges, and you can help scientists identify locations and types of garbage being removed. This allows the scientist to track trash patterns and inform policy solutions.

Get out there and start cleaning!