As families everywhere embrace remote learning, parents are scrambling for ideas to make lessons engaging for their kids. Since most households don’t have lab equipment, science class can be especially difficult.

The UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science has you covered. The center helps scientists, communities and citizens collaborate on science to address environmental problems as a part of civic life.

Center leaders have assembled a list of projects families can do while at home, or just outside their homes while practicing social distancing. For example, center faculty are participating in the City Nature Challenge – Sacramento Region and the Outside Wonder Lab — two projects that encourage scientists of all ages to observe their surroundings and take note. Professional researchers receive and analyze the observations to identify larger environmental issues or trends. 

For families looking for projects to do at home, center director Heidi Lyn Ballard recommends Zooniverse, a user-friendly, online platform that includes a number of projects for people to learn about and join.

“We are looking into studying how parents … can engage their kids in science through the online classification and analysis activities on hundreds of Zooniverse projects, on topics from penguins to weather to galaxies, so it can appeal to whatever interest a child might have,” Ballard said.

These projects are great for people who want or need a more hands-on approach to learning.