Citizen science for kids: how your child's sightings can help real scientists

5 min read

For parents of curious 9 to 13-year-olds who want their nature spotting to count for something. You'll get how it helps, which projects to join and when, and how to keep your child's details private.

A notebook of pencil tally marks and a pair of binoculars on a windowsill, with sparrows at a bird feeder outside.

Scientists can't be everywhere. They can't count every sparrow on every feeder, or spot the first butterfly of spring in every park. But hundreds of thousands of families together can. That's citizen science: ordinary people, including children, collecting real observations that researchers use to track how nature is changing.

Citizen science for kids is one of the best ways to turn "we saw a bird" into "we helped science". This guide covers how it works, the best projects to join and when they run, and the privacy and age rules parents need to know, especially for apps.

How can a child's sightings help real science?

A single sighting doesn't tell a scientist much. Thousands of them, each with a what, a where and a when, can show:

which species are becoming more common or rarer, and where;
whether birds, butterflies and flowers are arriving earlier in the year than they used to;
where a species is spreading, including ones that don't belong.

The numbers can be huge. In 2026, 650,279 people took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch and counted more than 9.4 million birds. No research team could ever collect that alone.

Children are good at this. They notice small things, they don't mind counting, and they love having a real job to do.

iNaturalist and Seek: the app route, and the age rules

iNaturalist is a free platform where people share photos of living things, and a community of naturalists helps name them. When enough people agree on what a sighting is, it becomes "Research Grade" and can be shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), where scientists use it. iNaturalist records have been used in thousands of scientific papers.

The age rule. iNaturalist accounts are for people aged 13 and over. For a child aged 12 or under, a parent or guardian has to create the account through iNaturalist's special minor-account page, which asks for a US$1 donation by credit or debit card to confirm you're an adult. iNaturalist says an account found to belong to someone under 13 without a parent's permission will be suspended.

Privacy. Every iNaturalist observation is public, and shows roughly where and when someone was. For sightings at or near home, use the geoprivacy setting to hide the exact location, and don't use your child's full name as their username.

Seek by iNaturalist is the gentler option for younger explorers. It needs no account, keeps records on your own device by default, and blurs your location. Its sightings don't go to scientists unless you sign in to an iNaturalist account and choose to share them, so many families start with Seek and move on later.

Projects to join through the year

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (late January)

The world's largest garden wildlife survey. You spend one hour watching the birds in your garden, from a window, on a balcony or in a local park, and record the most of each species you see at any one time. It usually runs over the last weekend of January; in 2026 it was 23 to 25 January. It's free, and the RSPB publishes the results each spring.

Big Butterfly Count (mid-July to early August)

Butterfly Conservation's summer count. Spend 15 minutes in a sunny spot, such as a garden, park or allotment, and count the butterflies and some day-flying moths you see, using a free identification chart or app. The dates move a little each year; in 2026 it ran from 17 July to 9 August. It's free.

Great Backyard Bird Count (mid-February)

It's run from the US, but it has been worldwide since 2013, so UK families can join too. Count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more of four days in mid-February, and send your list online.

OPAL surveys (any time, just for fun)

OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) ran nature surveys for schools and families, led by Imperial College London, from 2007 to 2019. Its surveys are now closed for sending in results, but the packs are still a brilliant way to investigate earthworms, air quality and more in your own area.

A year at a glance

When	Project	Time it takes
Late January	RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch	1 hour
Mid-February	Great Backyard Bird Count	15 minutes or more
Mid-July to early August	Big Butterfly Count	15 minutes per count
Any time	iNaturalist or Seek	As long as you like

Dates move a little from year to year, so check each project's website before you plan.

How to make a good record

Scientists can only use what they can trust. Teach these habits:

Write down what, where and when, including the date and roughly the time.
Only record what you're sure of. "A small brown bird" is honest; a guess written as a fact isn't. Many projects are happy with "unknown".
Count carefully, and don't count the same bird twice. That's why the Big Garden Birdwatch asks for the most you see at one time.
Zero counts count. If you watched for an hour and saw no butterflies, that's useful information too.
Take a photo if you can, so someone else can check it.

Taking it further

Scout, the handheld nature camera for kids aged 9 to 13 that we're launching on Kickstarter in spring 2027, is built around the same habit of honest recording. It would rather say "I'm not sure" than tell a child something wrong, and it only names a group when it's right at least 85 times in 100. Back home, every new find joins a collection and a map of the places they explored.

Your child, the scientist

The best thing about citizen science is what it does to how children see a walk. A robin on the fence isn't just a robin any more; it's a record, a piece of evidence, a small part of something much bigger. Pick one project this season, put the date on the fridge, and count together.