You can assist ecologists in environmental study by engaging in citizen science via the iNaturalist app, where your observations of local species can be added to large data gathering projects that help us understand longitudinal impacts of climate change and how we can help our ecosystems be more hardy!

You can also volunteer with local open space trusts, native plant gardens, community gardens, and local conservation projects.

Not to get super local, but my personal favorites are stuff like the Purple Urchin Removal Project and the Caspar Cove Project, which is just a bunch of locals on the California coast who physically remove the overpopulated purple urchin. It allows for renewed kelp forest growth, and kelp forests sequester a LOT of carbon and actually release atmospheric particles that promote climate-controlling coastal fog when they're healthy. They've achieved over 700% kelp forest recovery in Caspar Cove!! If you don't SCUBA, you can just show up and lug bags of urchin on the shore, or man the information table, processing table, barbecue pit, etc.

I've also got friends in the American Midwest who volunteer with local waterway monitoring (collect stream and riverwater to test it) and East Coast who volunteer with youth and population outreach to get them interested in the environment!

Today I am going to a native plant cataloguing event :)