We are always looking for volunteers to help with various projects. We accept volunteers of any age, walk of life, or background. Our volunteer corps includes master naturalists, high school students, college students, retired persons, working mothers, and many other citizen scientists. Email our collection manager to get started today!
Potential projects
- Re-vialing specimens:
- We have 200k vials with degrading stoppers that threaten the safety and integrity of our biological heritage. Please help us replace them!
- Re-enveloping dragonflies:
- We are replacing the opaque “envelopes” that hold part of our dragonfly/damselfly collection, as they are non-archival and also obscure the specimens themselves. We have about 4000 or so to go!
- Specimen mounting
- We have potentially ~100,000 (or more) specimens in our “backlog” that are inaccessible to scientists because they aren’t mounted or labeled.
- Requires attention to detail and a bit more instruction, but would be VERY helpful!
- Labeling drawers, unit trays, and reorganizing
- As specimens move into the collection and are curated, header and drawer labels need to be updated. Using existing templates, help us by creating and printing nice new labels for our specimens!
- Various cleaning tasks
- Over time, our drawers get dusty, and we would love to have someone come clean them.
- A little bit of vacuuming never hurts, and it also reduces the risk of pests infesting the collection.
- Your project here!
- Nothing here excites you? Contact the collection manager and ask about other projects! We’re always happy to help find you a niche in the collection workspace.