At a glance
Transcribe microscope slide labels.
Type of activity: Online
Who can take part? Adults and students (Key Stage 4+)
When? Any time
How long will it take? Two minutes per slide
Our thanks
Thank you to everyone who helped us transcribe the microscopic fossils slides. We are currently preparing our next project for 2018.
In the meantime, you can help us to mark up colourful bird specimens to help us understand how such diversity evolved in Nature in Project Plumage.
Be a digital volunteer for the Museum. Extract research data from microscope slides of some of the world's smallest fossils.
Why we are doing the project
The Museum is on a mission to digitise the 80 million specimens in its collection. We want to make the information the specimens hold about the natural world more openly available to scientists and the public.
Among the thousands of microscope slides we have imaged are a collection of microscopic fossils embedded in slices of rock. Now we need your help to transcribe information from the specimen labels so that the data can be used for scientific research.
The smallest shells in the ocean
These thin sections of ancient ocean sediment contain tiny organisms, foraminifera, that lived in shallow tropical seas. The label data will help us learn how our environment, climate and ocean have changed over 500 million years.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who helped us transcribe the slides. The entire collection will be made publicly available on the Museum's Data Portal.
Project team
- Margaret Gold, Science Community Coordinator (SYNTHESYS)
- Laurence Livermore, Digital Collections Programme Innovation Project Manager
- Lucy Robinson, Citizen Science Programme Manager
- Giles Miller, Senior Curator, Palaeontology
- Stephen Stukins, Senior Curator, Palaeontology
In partnership with Notes from Nature, a National Science Foundation-funded project.
To become a digital volunteer for the Museum, please visit Project Plumage, which is ongoing.
