Volunteer opportunities

Help NOAA predict, observe and protect our changing planet by making your own contributions toward a greater understanding of our Earth and its diverse systems. Whether it’s helping count whales in Hawaii or reporting on weather right outside your window, we’ve got a volunteer opportunity for you.

We work with public and private sector partners to coordinate the citizen science opportunities we offer. Browse these links below for some of our citizen science projects or search the full and in-depth NOAA Citizen Science Catalog to find both national and local NOAA volunteer opportunities that you can participate in virtually or in person.

Weather

Trained storm spotters and weather observers support NOAA’s mission of climate monitoring and protecting life and property through accurate weather and water forecasts and warnings.

• SKYWARN® Storm Spotter: Help keep your community safe by volunteering to become a trained severe storm spotter for NOAA's National Weather Service. There is even an easy-to-use online community reporting tool, Storm Reports, which promotes the rapid delivery of coastal storm damage information to emergency management personnel and others across New England.
• Daily weather observer: Join a national network of Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) volunteers who record and report weather and climate observations to the National Weather Service on a daily basis over the phone or Internet. The National Weather Service provides training, equipment, and additional support through equipment maintenance and site visits. Not only does the data support daily weather forecasts and warnings, but they also contribute toward building the nation’s historic climate record.
• Precipitation reporter
  • If you like to track rain, hail and snow, you may want to join the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network offsite link (CoCoRaHS), a nationwide community-based network of volunteers who measure and help map precipitation.
  • NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory has a similar program, the Precipitation Identification Near the Ground project (mPING), where you can report on the type of — but you do not need to measure — precipitation you are encountering at any given time or location. Volunteers can spend a little or a lot of time making and recording ground truth observations using the mPING project website or app. 

Ocean

Delve into NOAA’s pursuit to observe, understand and manage our nation's coastal and marine resources. Opportunities include:

• National Estuarine Reserve volunteer: Event coordinators, research assistants and educators are just some of the many more ways you can help NOAA in protecting our nation's coastal protected areas.
• Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project participant: Support coastal marine debris monitoring efforts used by researchers and NOAA’s Marine Debris Program to assess the impacts and risk posed by marine debris.
• Phytoplankton Monitoring Network: This NOAA initiative promotes a better understanding of harmful algal blooms with help from volunteers who sample local waters twice a month and identify the phytoplankton found.
• Crowdsourced bathymetry: Volunteers who operate vessels-of-opportunity in places where nautical charts are poor or where the seafloor is changeable and hydrographic assets are not easily available help map the ocean floor through Crowdsourced Bathymetry (CSB) efforts. The CSB vision is to tap into the enthusiasm for mapping the ocean floor by enabling trusted mariners to easily contribute data and augment our current bathymetric coverage.

NOAA National Marine Sanctuary System

Help NOAA Sanctuaries serve as the trustee for a network of underwater parks encompassing more than 600,000 square miles. There are myriad opportunities to do so, including:

• Whale Alert offsite link: Whale Alert is a free phone app that allows mariners and the public to help decrease the risk of injury or death to whales from ship strikes. Whale Alert depends on your increased participation and willingness to contribute observations taken while whale watching from land and at sea along the coast.
• LiMPETS offsite link: Teachers, students and community groups along the coast of California collect rocky intertidal and sandy beach data in the name of science and help to protect our local marine ecosystems.
• Sanctuary Ocean Count: Help collect important population and distribution information on humpback whales around the Hawaiian Islands.

NOAA Sea Grant

Partner with the nation’s top universities in conducting scientific research, education, training, and extension projects within coastal communities. Opportunities include:

• Delaware’s Citizen Monitoring Program offsite link: Collect verifiable water quality data to support public policy decisions.  This program also aims to increase public participation and support for the protection of Delaware’s water resources. 
• Red Tide Rangers: offsite link Monitor for the presence of Karenia brevis, a common microscopic, single-celled, photosynthetic organism found in Gulf of Mexico waters that releases toxins known to harm wildlife and people on land and at sea. K. brevis can "bloom" and cause significant discoloration of Gulf and bay waters, commonly known as a “red tide.”
• Maine’s Beach Profile Monitoring: offsite link Join 150 community and school volunteers to measure changes in the distribution of sand on the beach. Tracking these changes over long periods (as they have done for 15 years) provides Maine Geological Survey with data to identify seasonal, annual, and even track long-term trends in beach erosion and accretion.

NOAA Fisheries

• Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Cooperative Tagging Center program: The Cooperative Tagging Center relies on information collected by volunteers who are frequently out on the water. Volunteer anglers not only tag and release billfish (sailfish and marlin), tuna, swordfish, cobia, king and Spanish mackerel, greater amberjack, almaco jack and jack crevalle, but they also report when they have recaptured one of these species. Request a free tagging kit by calling (800) 437-3936 or emailing tagging@noaa.gov.
• Cooperative Shark Tagging Program:  The Cooperative Shark Tagging Program is a collaborative effort between recreational anglers, the commercial fishing industry, and NOAA Fisheries to learn more about Atlantic sharks.  It is the longest running shark tagging program in the world and one of NOAA Fisheries' oldest citizen science projects. Want to know more? Found a tagged shark? offsite link
• California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program offsite link: The California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program is a community-based science program involving university researchers, sportfishing captains and crew, volunteer anglers, and partnerships with conservation and resource management agencies like NOAA Fisheries. Together, this group conducts research to evaluate marine protected areas (MPAs) and the status of nearshore fish stocks in California.
• Honu Count: Help NOAA track Hawaiian green sea turtles (also called honu) by reporting offsite link the locations of marked turtles. This data helps NOAA better understand honu habitat use patterns, migration, distribution, and survival. 
• FISHstory offsite link: Help analyze historic fishing photos from the South Atlantic and turn this information into usable data for fishery management, all from the comfort of your own home. By translating images into data, you're providing information before the start of fisheries monitoring that offers a better understanding of long-term changes in fish populations and could improve management. 

Thank you for your interest in helping advance our mission — we hope you'll volunteer as a NOAA citizen scientist today!