You and your students can become volunteer scientists in a nationwide project to record the time when foliage and flowers first appear this year. Project BudBurst, operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), allows students, gardeners, and other citizen scientists in every state to enter their observations into an online database that will give researchers a picture of our warming climate. 

Each registered participant selects one or more plants to observe. The project web site suggests more than 60 widely distributed native trees and flowers, with information on each. You can add other choices.

You are asked to begin checking your plants at least a week prior to the average date when buds open and leaves are visible. After buds burst, you will continue to observe the tree or flower for later events, such as the first leaf, first flower and, eventually, seed dispersal. When participants submit their records online, they can view maps of these events across the United States.

Launched February 15, the project will operate year-round so that early- and late-blooming species in different parts of the country can be monitored throughout their life cycles. Project BudBurst builds on a pilot program carried out last spring, when several thousand participants recorded the timing of the leafing and flowering of hundreds of plant species in 26 states.

The web site provides a section for teachers, with downloadable guides to the activity, data collection sheets, and more.