Zooniverse is a large global platform where volunteers can assist many different professional researchers. All projects can be accessed via the internet, making it easy to participate regardless of where you are in the world. Contributors study authentic objects, like videos of animals in natural habitats or specimens from museum collections.

Students love participating in Zooniverse projects because they’re easy to use and they provide windows into ecosystems and institutions far from home. Kids can count penguins in Argentina or lions in Mozambique by viewing images from camera traps, or they can inspect and transcribe handwritten museum labels from long ago. And the Zooniverse discussion boards allow volunteers to work together and interact with researchers. Zooniverse projects have produced hundreds of published research papers and open source data sets. In addition, there are some great educational resources that enhance Zooniverse.