So you think this winter, summer, fall, rainfall was more extream than any other time in your life?????

There is always that one person in your family who like to tell you stories of the good old days where life was really tough and they had to walk through snow clear up to their nose in the winter and you don't know how easy you have it. Our memories at best can be faulty at best and everything seems much worse depending on your perspective. The winter of 2014 my coworkers tried to convince me was the coldest and snowiest winter ever to which I laughed. "I was alive in 1976 and you we were buried up to our eyeballs in snow" I told them all.

 

Winter of 2014 snow pile.

 Now we can all stop playing "you never had it so bad" and help keep track of the "changes" we think we see and we all get to claim we are working with NASA!

The iSeeChange app (yes, another app) lets you document the changes you see around you. Got a favorite flowering tree which you swear bloomed three weeks earlier than it did last year. Then grab your phone snap a pic and then post your observations and then as others in your are make postings or observations. Some where a group of data nerds will start looking for patterns in observations and help us all try to make sense of how climate change is alerting the world around us. 

So, if you have a weather gauge in your back yard or are just obsessed with proving to all of your fields that your allergies, snow shoveling, bugs in your back yard were worse than they have ever been during the history of your existence then you can look at what others in your area are saying or log your observations and see what the scientist think.

Oh by the way if you're a science teacher this would be an awesome way to work on that climate change lesson plan and do a little citizen science.

More information:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/blogs/you-can-help-nasa-track-climate-change-your-phone

FINALLY SOMEONE DESIGNED AN APP THAT I THINK IS TOTALLY COOL!!

The good people at NPR recently reported on an app for your smartphone or tablet with some cool side effects. The average Joe or Jane on the street could help to locate species which has been described hundreds of years ago but never photographed or you could help uncover a totally new species. HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?! (The complete story can be found here.)
Think about it if your like me you photograph all sorts of cool things that you have no idea what is for instance:

Slime mold in spore stage according to a botanist friend of mine. 

Or this still as yet unidentified stuff.

Anyone out there who knows what this stuff is please let me know. It looks wet yet isn't and a friend ruled out it being a type of lichen.

On the iNaturalist.org website you can see what kinds of cool things people have spotted in your area; post pictures of cool stuff you've seen and can't identify, or search through some of the online field guides posted there. Even look at posts from around the world. Think about planning your next vacation based on something you saw posted on the app.

This new app got me thinking about an article I read in the New York Times a few years ago about mapping roadkill  to better understand where and what types of animals become pancaked on asphalt in California and Maine. (To read the article click here.)  Maybe someone should create a road kill app, so we can all become more aware of what is lurking along the countries roadsides and urge highway managers to consider creating more animal bridges in areas with high collision rates. Want to check some cool animal bridges click the National Wildlife Federations blog. 

So, instead of looking for Pokemon let's take and post pictures of the cool REAL things we see in nature.

Happy searching!!