While looking for appropriate volunteer activities for preschoolers, I happily stumbled up on this super cool organization. NestWatch is a project of Cornell University, the National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center that engages citizens in monitoring bird nests. As the site proclaims, “Anyone can monitor nests—it’s a rewarding way to spend time outdoors and participate in science.”

The project exists in order to help scientists understand how bird species decline. In order to develop both theories as to why bird numbers dwindle as well as possible solutions, they need large amounts of data from numerous locations. People learn about bird breeding biology through the program. Then, they collect and submit nest records from site locations near their homes. These records often include information about the nesting sites such as the bird species, location, habitat, number of baby birds or eggs, and other data. People who participate are known as “Citizen Scientists”—pretty fun, right?

The project isn’t only based in the United States, either. People from any continent can take part in monitoring bird nests. In fact, the scientists want global data in order to accurately assess bird migration patterns, species losses, and other important issues. Through BirdWatch, they are forming a huge, continent-wide database to track the birds, note which ones are surviving and where, and what efforts toward increasing reproductive rates are working.

This approach isn’t new, either. Cornell used to use Citizen Scientists for decades in order to record data through their Nest Record Card Program. However, the system was outdated, with all of its data on paper—making it very inaccessible for the worldwide effort. The new NestWatch database is much more modern, and allows people from all over the world—in nearly any location—to participate. Best of all, Citizen Scientists can also monitor the data of their fellow scientists, as all of the data is available for public viewing and downloading. In fact, once you post your own data, you get to see it alongside the data of other scientists. This is a fantastic way to get children and teens involved in real-life science experiments and exploration, both in and out of the classroom.

The database has almost 400,000 stored nest records from more than 40 years of data collection. These records monitor 500 different species of North American birds. To start volunteering yourself (or with your family, school, youth group, or organization), or to simply check out these interesting records, visit NestWatch.