The Great Sunflower Project

The Great Sunflower Project has three programs. The Safe Gardens for Pollinators program which uses data collected on Lemon Queen sunflowers to examine the effects of pesticides on pollinators. The Pollinator Friendly Plants program which is designed to identify the key plants to support healthy pollinator communities. And, the Great Pollinator Habitat Challenge which allows citizen scientists to evaluate and improve gardens, parks and other green spaces for pollinators.

Some bee populations have experienced severe declines that may affect food production. However, nobody has ever measured how much pollination is happening over a region, much less a continent, so there is little information about how a decline in the bee population can influence gardens.

The Great Sunflower Project makes it easy to gather this information. Find a plant you know (or a Lemon Queen Sunflower), observe it for 5 or more minutes and record all pollinators that visit, and contribute data online. You can make as many observations as you want while your flowers are in bloom. Plant, Watch, Enter. Repeat. That’s it. And, who doesn’t like sunflowers?!

This project is part of a kit (https://scistarter.org/citizen-science-kit-observing-pollinators) that may be available at your local library (https://scistarter.org/library-locations)!