I just heard a story on NPR about the positive benefits of interacting with nature even in simple ways like a walk around the block or an abstract way like listening to nature sounds. This NPR story covers another easy way to engage with nature that we all have grown used to by spending more time at home: observing and reporting what happens in your surroundings. “Community science” as it is termed, may seem like it wouldn’t provide much help, but in this case, many hands make light work. “A single scientist can work for years trying to collect as many observations as a crowdsourced project could collect in a month,” said Maiz Connolly, the community science coordinator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.The article suggests starting with CitizenScience.gov or SciStarter, but there are numerous options to fit more specific interests.Like many things these days all it takes is a smartphone and a sense of curiosity.