Virtual Resources

Research at Home: Large Data Sets

Mountains of data are at your fingertips and can be analyzed in new ways for your at-home research project

Locate a data set that interests you, see how others students have used large data sets in their research, and learn about current scientific studies fueled by big data.

US Government

Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.



US Census Bureau

The vision for data.census.gov is to make data available from one centralized place so that data users spend less time searching for data and content, and more time using it.


Amazon Web Services

This registry exists to help people discover and share datasets that are available via AWS resources.



Google

Provides statistics on search terms dating back to 2004.




National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA)

NCEI is responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public access to the Nation’s treasure of climate and historical weather data and information.



National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

DATA.NASA.GOV is NASA’s clearinghouse site for open-data provided to the public.




U.S. Geological Survey

The USGS Science Data Catalog provides seamless access to USGS research and monitoring data from across the nation. Users have the ability to search, browse, or use a map-based interface to discover data.



NASA Infrared Processing and Analysis Center

IRSA’s holdings consist of data products from NASA’s infrared and submillimeter projects and missions, as well as contributed data sets. These holdings include all-sky surveys in 20 bands, 88 billion rows of catalog data, 100 million images, and over 100,000 spectra.


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CDC is one of the major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services.


Using a Smartphone for Data Collection



More Awesome Data sets




Data scientists site for analyzing big sets of data.

Shiny.Rstudio

Great examples of data research projects.

Research at Home: Organisms and Ecosystems

A Biocube allows you to focus on biodiversity by closely examing and observing life in one cubic foot of space. Check out these resources to learn how to create a Biocube, select a spot, and get started analyzing the contents

Connect with Nature: Explore and share your observations from the natural world. With over 42 million observations posted, you’re bound to find project ideas for observing organisms in nature.

A picture (or live feed) is worth a thousand words! Check out explore’s live animal cams with feeds from around the world to get ideas for an observational study!

Learn more about Ecosystems using LabXChange



Contribute to a Citizen Science Project

Zooniverse

With over 100 projects to choose from and no experience necessary, you can start classifying galaxies, finding kelp forests, or locating homes in rural Africa in minutes!

LEARN MORE

National Geographic

Did you know snapping mountain-top photos of smog and listening for frog calls can help scientists? Get engaged in these projects recommended by National Geographic!

LEARN MORE

Smithsonian

Contribute to the Encyclopedia of Life, transcribe field notes of notable scientists, or contribute to climate research by analyzing ginkgo trees in these Smithsonian-sponsored projects!

LEARN MORE

Inventing Tomorrow

Check out these citizen science projects led by our friends at Inventing Tomorrow: Water Insights, Curio, ISeeChange

LEARN MORE

Foldit

Foldit is a crowdsourcing computer game enabling you to help fight disease by contributing to protein folding research.

LEARN MORE

Engineer a research project! Explore these projects

How to Approach a Scientist Virtually



Research Competitions