The Great Sunflower Project

Your home, school or community garden and those around the world produce roughly 15-20% of all the food we eat. And for the urban poor, who spend 50-70% of their income on food, these gardens are a real source of good nutrition and an essential route to food security.

Whether your garden contains vegetables, fruit trees, flowers, or even medicinal plants, many of these plants must be pollinated before a fruit forms. And as the headlines for the last year have made clear, bees are under threat. Here is a link to information about some of our bees in peril.

We know very little about bee activity in home and community gardens and their surrounding environments, but we are certain that they are a crucial link in the survival of native habitats and local produce, not to mention our beautiful urban gardens. Our local pollinator populations require our understanding & protection, and to answer that call we need to determine where and when they are at work.

With enough citizen scientists collecting data, we can learn much more, much faster, about the current state of bee activity. We would love to have you join us; let’s learn about pollinators together!

Find a public garden