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Oregon Season Tracker – Collaborative Community Science
Oregon Season Tracker (OST) links volunteers, natural resource managers, educators, and researchers to the science they use.
Contribute to the understanding of weather, climate, and their effects on our local environment by reporting precipitation and seasonal plant changes (also known as phenology). Observe from your own home, farm, woodland, ranch, or school.
OST volunteers are people like you, who share an interest in nature and the outdoors. Join the hundreds of OST community science volunteers already gathering information in over half of Oregon’s counties.
Are you interested in becoming an Oregon Season Tracker?
Oregon Season Trackers are OSU Extension volunteers who contribute to climate science research in Oregon and beyond. They are people like you, who like to follow the weather, have an interest in plants, enjoy the outdoors, and appreciate learning new things. To be an OST volunteer you would:
- Take an online self-paced training
- Register with OST and our national partners
- Purchase and install a standardized rain gauge
- Choose several plants to observe
- Spend about 5 minutes a day reporting precipitation, and about 15 minutes a week reporting plant phases on your smartphone or computer.
Ready to start?
Oregon Season Trackers are motivated by many reasons:
“I am interested in doing science as well as observing the natural world.”
“Retirement gave me more time to pay attention to care taking my land and OSU Extension Service classes gives me more knowledge and ways to be able to see more.”
“Wanting to learn more about the environment and activities I can do on my own in my own area…”
“I have been collecting precipitation data for my own records for years. When I heard about the program it seemed like a great way to use my data for something bigger than just my own knowledge.”
