Post Archives: Lunar Society Bulletins

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/lunar-2019-04 😊

Tonight is the night of a full moon, so that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families.

Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

• ➔ The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

Browse through that big project list and find one or two that would be a good fit for your family and a good match for your interests. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate right now in these projects, and in many others too.

On the eBird website (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and as of this week I’ve contributed a total of 439 checklists (daily observation reports) for this locality. When all the checklists are combined you can really get a sense of the seasonal distribution and migration patterns for the year.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3) the MilkyWay@Home project, which studies the history and structure of our galaxy.

I’ve created River Houses team pages for each of these projects (Einstein@Home team, MilkyWay@Home team, SETI@Home team). Once your computer is signed up to participate you can join one of these teams and also print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed — they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you’ve processed a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’ve set up a simple chart of River Houses team results, and this is what it looks like:

That’s just a simple graphing exercise — it’s something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future. (And your students can develop their own individual charts as well.)

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ The friends who made the future: Learn more about the original Lunar Society of Birmingham in “The Lunar Men,” a fine short video from History West Midlands.

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. 📸

❡ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas and world atlas (which has an astronomical section) will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉 🌠

For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-april-photo-challenge 😊

Calling all homeschool photographers! One of the independent projects we recommend to homeschool students is the monthly Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. The April 2019 challenge is now open and the announced themes are “Beginning and End” and “Prison Buildings.” You can see sample photos and learn how to submit an entry here:

• ➔ Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge – Open Themes (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photo_challenge#submitting)

The Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge encourages people to take and submit high-quality images for the public Wikimedia Commons database — the source from which most of the images in Wikipedia are drawn. Once you’ve registered and submitted an entry, you can also participate in the voting for the best entries each month.

If you have talented young photographers in your home academy, why not encourage them to enter. Working on a specific theme over a period of a few weeks is a great way for students to develop both their technical camera skills and their visual artistic skills.

You can find more ideas for independent student projects in a wide range of scientific and scholarly fields on our River Houses Lunar Society page (riverhouses.org/lunar-society).

What photographic, artistic, and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this week? 😊

Tonight is the night of a full moon, so that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

• ➔ The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate right now in these projects, and in many others too.

On the eBird website (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and have now contributed a total of 527 checklists (daily observation reports) for this locality. When all the checklists are combined you can really get a sense of the seasonal distribution and migration patterns for the year.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3) the MilkyWay@Home project, which studies the history and structure of our galaxy.

I’ve created River Houses team pages for each of these projects (Einstein@Home team, MilkyWay@Home team, SETI@Home team). Once your computer is signed up to participate you can join one of these teams and also print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed — they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you’ve processed a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’ve set up a simple chart of River Houses team results, and this is what it looks like:

That’s just a simple graphing exercise — it’s something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future. (And your students can develop their own individual charts as well.)

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. 📸

❡ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas and world atlas (which has an astronomical section) will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉 🌠

Tonight is the night of a full moon, so that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

• 🌕 The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate in these projects (and many others) too.

On the eBird website (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and have now contributed a total of 518 checklists (daily observation reports) for this locality. When all the checklists are combined you can really get a sense of the seasonal distribution and migration patterns for the year. (I just completed a full year cycle, so for the first time there are observation records for all 52 weeks of the year.)

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3) the MilkyWay@Home project, which studies the history and structure of our galaxy.

I’ve created River Houses team pages for each of these projects (Einstein@Home team, MilkyWay@Home team, SETI@Home team). Once your computer is signed up to participate you can join one of these teams and also print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed — they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you’ve processed a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’ve set up a simple chart of River Houses team results, and this is what it looks like:

That’s just a simple graphing exercise — it’s something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future. (And your students can develop their own individual charts as well.)

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. 📸

❡ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉 🌠

Last night was the night of a full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

• 🌕 The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements.

As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two types of projects I participate in: eBird monitoring of bird populations, and distributed computing research using the Berkeley open infrastructure application. You and your students can participate in these projects (and many others) too.

On the eBird website (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and since our last Lunar Society report I’ve added 21 new checklists (daily observation reports), bringing my total for that locality to 356. When all the checklists are combined you can really see the seasonal distribution and migration chart for the year develop. By the end of next month I will have completed a full year’s monitoring of this one small park.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a public park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring. Note that the Great Backyard Bird Count, coming up in February, is an associated project and a great way to get started.

Distributed computing projects use idle time on your computer to perform scientific calculations on various kinds of complex data. The most popular distributed computing projects run on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform (BOINC), and I contribute computer time to three of these: (1) the SETI@Home project, sponsored by the University of California, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (really!); (2) the Einstein@Home project, which studies neutron stars; and (3) the MilkyWay@Home project, which studies the history and structure of our galaxy.

I’ve created River Houses team pages for each of these projects (Einstein@Home team, MilkyWay@Home team, SETI@Home team). Once your computer is signed up to participate, you can print “certificates of computation” that show how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed — they’re just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you’ve processed a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’ve set up a simple chart of River Houses team results, and this is what it looks like:

That’s just a simple graphing exercise — it’s something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future. (And your students can develop their own individual charts as well.)

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to read about many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. 📸

❡ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉 🌠

Tonight is the night of the full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the River Houses Lunar Society.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful long-term plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of some of the great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to geography to physics to natural history to mathematics to meteorology to literature to galactic exploration:

• 🌕 The Lunar Society of the River Houses (riverhouses.org/lunar-society)

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming an international research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ ⛏ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will become something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements. As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on two of the projects I participate in, eBird and SETI@Home:

On the eBird site (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been mainly tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (eBird hotspot L6926932), and since our last Lunar Society report I’ve added 27 new checklists (daily observation reports), bringing my eBird total to 335. When all the checklists are combined you can really see the seasonal distribution and migration chart for the year develop.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. (Helping to track a local park or eBird “hotspot” will let you generate more interesting results.) You can even add photos and sound recordings to your reports if you wish. Just pay a visit to the eBird website (ebird.org) and start exploring.

The SETI@Home project (setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu), sponsored by the University of California, uses idle time on your computer to perform complex calculations on radio telescope data, looking for extraterrestrial signals. (Really!) I’ve been participating in this project with my computers for a long time and I recently created a River Houses team page for future development. Once your computer is signed up to participate, you can print “certificates of computation” that shows how much data you’ve individually analyzed and how much your team has analyzed.

The River Houses team (of which I’m the only current member) is up to 5834 “cobblestones” (units) of contributed computation for SETI@Home so far. You can participate and get a regular certificate of your own — it’s just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

And here’s another level of skill development for your high-school (or even advanced middle-school) students: once you have a few weeks or months of data, you can start graphing your contributions. Using Google Sheets, I’m setting up a simple interactive chart of the current SETI contributions for the River Houses team. It’s just a test at the moment — something that we can refine, develop, and expand in the future.

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects like these in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page to see many more projects your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. A different theme is chosen each month; just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. 😊 📸

❡ Books in the running brooks: If you decide to participate in eBird, our recommended homeschool reference library (riverhouses.org/books) includes an excellent bird guide that would serve your family well. And for any astronomical projects you may join, our recommended star atlas will help you orient yourself to the objects you are studying in the starry vault above. 🦉

Tonight is the night of the full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. Here’s an outline of the idea, along with a list of great projects that homeschool students (and their parents) can join and contribute to, from history to natural history to galactic exploration:

• 🌕 The Lunar Society of the River Houses

Browse through that project list and find one that would be a good fit for your family. Before you know it, your students will be learning a host of valuable skills, and your little home academy will be on its way to becoming a research powerhouse. 🔬 🔭 🖥 🦋 🔍 ⚗️ 📖 🌲 😊

Over time, it’s my hope that these monthly reports about the Lunar Society will evolve into something like a forum where homeschoolers participating in online research can share their achievements. As a simple example, here’s my own personal report for the past month on the two main projects I participate in, eBird and SETI@Home:

On the eBird site (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (ebird.org/hotspot/L6926932) and over the past month I’ve added 30 new checklists (daily observation reports), bringing my eBird total to 448. Here’s today’s list as an example: ebird.org/view/checklist/S50161311. When all the checklists are combined you can really see the distribution and migration chart for the year develop, with fall migration and spring migration pulses visible for a number of local species.

You can start keeping a similar list for a location near you — your backyard, or a local park or other natural area. Just pay a visit to the eBird site (ebird.org) and start exploring.

The SETI@Home project (setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu), sponsored by the University of California, uses idle time on your computer to perform complex calculations on radio telescope data, looking for extraterrestrial signals. (Really!) I’ve been participating in this project with my computers for a long time and I recently created a River Houses team page for future use (setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=208851). Once your computer is signed up to participate, you can print a “certificate of computation” that shows how much data you’ve analyzed.

I’m up to 21,604 “cobblestones” (units) of contributed computation so far. You can participate and get a regular certificate of your own — it would be just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects like these in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page (riverhouses.org/lunar-society) to see many more projects that your family can join.

What scholarly and scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ Calling all photographers: If you’ve got a budding photographer in your homeschool, one group project you can participate in is the Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge. Different themes are chosen each month; this month’s themes are “Bones” and “Measurements.” Just sign up and follow the instructions to submit your own entries. Once you’re a registered participant you can also vote for each month’s winners. Check the page regularly to find out about additional upcoming themes. 😊 📸

Tonight is the night of the full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses. The Lunar Society is one of our big and wonderful plans to encourage homeschoolers to participate in real online research projects and share their results with other homeschool families. You can read more about the idea right here on this new page:

• 🌕 The Lunar Society of the River Houses

These monthly reports, I hope, will one day evolve into something like an open forum where homeschool families participating in online research can share their achievements over the past month. As an example, here’s my own personal report for the month on the two main projects I participate in, eBird and SETI@Home:

On the eBird site (eBird.org), sponsored by Cornell University, I’ve been tracking the birds in a small riverside park near me (ebird.org/hotspot/L6926932) and over the past month I’ve found six new species there: White-throated Sparrow, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Purple Finch, and Pine Siskin. That brings the park total to 73. These aren’t rare species in the region, but they haven’t been recorded before in this small local park, and my cumulative list illustrates how many birds you can find even in your own neighborhood and what their regional migratory patterns look like.

The SETI@Home project (setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu), sponsored by the University of California, uses idle time on your computer to perform complex calculations on radio telescope data, looking for extraterrestrial signals. (Really!) I’ve been participating in this project with my computers for a long time and I recently created a River Houses team page for future use (setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=208851). There isn’t much there at this point, and it’s not especially well designed from the point of view of a beginning student, but it’s a starting point from which to grow. Once your computer is signed up to participate, you can print a “certificate of computation” that shows how much data you’ve analyzed — just the thing for your homeschool bulletin board. 😊

I recently joined another computer-based project called MilkyWay@Home (milkyway.cs.rpi.edu), sponsored by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, that studies the structure and history of our galaxy. Just getting started there, so no results are available yet.

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects like these in a variety of scientific and scholarly fields, something that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Pay a visit to our Lunar Society page (riverhouses.org/lunar-society) to see many more projects your family can participate in, and make your little home academy into a research powerhouse today. 🔬

What scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

Tonight (24 September) is the night of the full moon, and that means it’s time for a report from the Lunar Society of the River Houses.

The Internet provides exceptional opportunities for homeschool students to participate in real research projects in a variety of fields, and the Lunar Society is another big and wonderful River Houses plan to help bring those students together. Instead of leaving students to work in isolation from other homeschoolers, the Lunar Society will encourage them to join online research projects and share their accomplishments with other members of the River Houses every month (on you-know-what-day).

I’m putting together a list of a few such projects that I hope future members of the River Houses network (as it develops) will be able to work on together. The list will include projects in a variety of fields, to appeal to different interests. Here are four I already participate in myself (and you can too) — one in natural history, two that use the idle time on your computer to assist with scientific calculations, and one that documents astronomical observations:

• 📍eBird (ebird.org) — A project to map bird observations in your backyard and around the world.
• 📍SETI@Home (setiathome.berkeley.edu) — A project to search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. (Really!)
• 📍Einstein@Home (einsteinathome.org) — A project to search for gravitational waves and pulsars in deep space.
• 📍American Meteor Society Fireball Reports (amsmeteors.org) — A project to track fireballs (exceptionally bright meteors) and to help determine their speed, direction, and possible areas of impact.

Of these four initial projects, eBird is active and suitable for people of all ages — even small children can join in a count of birds at a backyard feeder. The second two are more advanced, suitable for high school students interested in computers, science, and astronomy (and their parents, too), but these projects are also more passive and simply involve having your computer do calculations in the background. The final project, on fireballs, is very interesting, but it’s also quite unpredictable, since there’s no way you can guarantee making a successful observation yourself (although there are ways to increase your chances with special equipment).

Here’s my own participation report — if you participate in these projects, you can let everyone know how you’re doing as well:

On eBird.org I have been documenting the birds of a local riverside park for most of the year (ebird.org/hotspot/L6926932), and have so far recorded 67 species with daily observations. It’s very easy to see differences in abundance and migration patterns, and this collection of local observations helps to build up a more detailed picture of bird populations in my region and state as a whole.

The SETI@Home project is something I’ve had my own computers signed up to work on for (gosh!) almost twenty years, and I’ve recently created a River Houses team page for future use. There isn’t much there at this point, and it’s not especially well designed from the point of view of a beginning student, but it’s a starting point from which to grow. So far, I’ve contributed a total of 29,603 hours of computer time to the analysis of radio telescope data for SETI. (No sign of E.T. yet, alas.)

The Einstein@Home project also uses my computer to process astronomical data, and so far it has completed 4533 “credits” of data analysis. I’ve set up a placeholder for a future River Houses team on Einstein@Home also (with 2079 credits of data analyzed so far).

My American Meteor Society page includes two fireball reports, one that was traced to an object that entered the atmosphere over eastern New York state (273-2018), and another that was traced to an object that traveled west over southern New Hampshire (4563-2017).

You and your homseschoolers can independently join any of these projects today, if you wish — no need to wait for any special River Houses affiliation.

Here are some additional project opportunities that I haven’t participated in myself but that I am investigating:

• 📍iNaturalist (inaturalist.org) — Similar to eBird.org, but encompassing all of natural history.
• 📍Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge — Do you have a budding photographer in your homeschool? The Wikimedia Foundation (sponsors of Wikipedia) has a monthly photography contest to encourage people to produce freely available images on a variety of themes that will help to improve Wikipedia.
• 📍Zooniverse (zooniverse.org) — The big clearinghouse for “citizen science,” with dozens of research projects available in many different fields. This may be best place to explore if you want to find a new homeschool project to take up.

Take a look at these and see if any of them catch your interest and the interest of your students.

What does this have to do with the full moon? Well, there was a famous science-and-technology club in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s called the Lunar Society of Birmingham (because they met each month around the time of the full moon). They discussed current scientific developments, shared new research results, talked about new inventions, and generally had a grand old time.

I’m hoping that within the River Houses, we’ll be able to get homeschoolers participating in a number of these group research projects, and at each full moon we can have a kind of round-up of the things our members have accomplished (and we can have a grand old time, too). Imagine hundreds (thousands?) of homeschoolers across the country learning about and contributing to interesting research projects with their River House friends. That’s the Lunar Society — a nice idea for the future. 😊

What scientific discoveries have you made in your homeschool this month? 😊

❡ The friends who made the future: The group History West Midlands has put together a nice little video about the original Lunar Society of Birmingham — take a look and see where we got our name.