In 2014, over 600 people world wide took part in the very first MyOSD program and sampled water from diverse regions such as the subtropic oceans of Hawaii, to the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean. These samples, related in time, space and environmental parameters, provided insights into waters' microbial diversity and function. The inclusion of important environmental data lsuch as latitude, longitude, temperature, wind speed help scientist get a better understanding of the world’s oceans.
Over one sixth of those participating were ‘citizen scientists’, meaning even people (like me) with non-scientific minds can take part in this important one day event. Anybody who is interested and has access to marine or fresh water can join MyOSD. Even if you are just in your garden or any other spot in the world you can send us your data, just be aware that the App was mainly built for the acquisition of marine data, so some fields will not fit. Have a look at this short video to see what's involved: MyOSD 2015. The sampling kits used in the vidoe are available from MyOSD hubs.
So if you’d like to get involved and spend just a small portion of your Summer Sailstice weekend helping scientists, jump online at http://www.microb3.eu/myosd/how-join-myosd and sign up. You'd be helping scientists world wide.
And of course if you haven’t yet signed up for Summer Sailstice, get onboard now - The big event is less than two weeks away!
