Swipe for Science!

Can you spare a few moments to help identify flowers on images of museum specimens? We need help with a simple task, which will assist researchers who are studying phenology (cycles of events in the natural world).  All you need to do is download the Zooniverse mobile app, load up our first ever fully mobile expeditions, and swipe right if you see flowers and left if you do not.   It may be simple, but it will be a huge help for science.

The species we’ll be focusing on is called evening primrose.  The flowers of the evening primrose open quickly every evening, earning this plant its name.  Its flowering phenology is broadly late Spring through Fall but we don’t yet know much how that varies across geography and during different years with different weather patterns.

Here are more details to help you get started:

• Download the Zooniverse app from Google Play or the App Store. 
• Select Nature and scroll to Notes from Nature. You don’t need to create an account if you don’t want to.
• Select “Phenology II: Evening-primroses”
• Read through the short tutorial. Be sure to check out the directions by clicking the “?” next to the question.
• After that you will see an image of a plant specimen. Can you see flowers?  If yes, swipe right, and if no, swipe left.
• You may need to zoom in to check for flowers. You can tap the image to engage the zoom feature and then use normal gestures to zoom in or out.

We know some folks have helped with this project using our web application, and that is still up and running as well.

Thanks for your time! If you enjoyed this project, then please check out notesfromnature.org.