Education -- Is it too much to dream that students and others empowered by internet connectivity, digital cameras, and a vast array of other technologies could solve the planet's environmental problems by collecting, analyzing, and acting upon data? We should overcome classroom boredom by challenging students to solve real-world problems. Instead of teaching students to memorize information that they can retrieve from their smart phones, we should encourage them to explore the unknown, discover new things, and use technology to share their findings with the world. We can develop their curiosity, creativity, and logic by giving each an exciting personal challenge --- become a local expert on a species in your neighborhood -- investigate, document, and understand its biology, environmental requirements, and interactions. By involving students in meaningful, original research, we can teach them quantitative methods, problem solving, communication skills, teamwork, and other valuable job skills.

Environmental science -- Climate change, pollution, invasive species, land use, and over-harvesting threaten biodiversity and the ecosystem services that the biota provides. Without massive public participation in research, decision-making, and subsequent actions, scientists are unlikely to understand fully the impacts of these large-scale problems and recommend timely solutions. The tasks at hand are simply too big for governments and professional scientists to tackle without considerable help from the general public and the private sector. Consider the following:

• Since Carl Linnaeus started to put binomial names on species in 1735, taxonomists have described only 1.8 million of the world's estimated 10 million species. At the current rate of describing nearly 20,000 new species annually, the taxonomic community will take over four more centuries to complete naming all species. This is unacceptable. We need a new strategy. How could citizen scientists, crowdsourcing, and modern technology be applied to speed things up and solve the problem within 20 years?

• With the exception of some charismatic species and ones important to our health, food supply, and forestry, we have a dearth of information on the distribution, ecological requirements, and importance of most species. There are simply too many species for professional biologists to study thoroughly. A solution would be to empower students and the general public to study ecological communities, monitor changes in populations, and understand their causes. In addition to studying species in nature, they could help photograph, database, and make publicly accessible via the web the estimated 3 billion specimens that are undigitized in the world's museums, herbaria, and private collections. They could also glean and assemble legacy information about species from the vast quantity of published information that is coming online.

• Because of logistical constraints, we cannot conduct randomized, replicated experiments at regional scales to understand large-scale phenomena such as the impact of climate on biodiversity. However, if a dense network of long-term study sites existed across continents, we could use natural field experiments, such as unseasonable temperatures and local droughts, to do so. Schools could run such a network as a hands-on means of teaching science, technology, and analytical skills.

Call to action -- Let's make students more environmentally aware, teach them to collect, analyze, and use data to make decisions, help set policy and, above all, act to make our environment more sustainable. Through education, technology, and an important common cause, let's motivate students with hope for their future and that of the planet. Let's also harness the power of the retired, many of whom have the time, computers, and cameras to get involved and mentor younger generations. Together we can train scientists, demystify science, and develop an educated constituency to help provide the political resolve that society needs to support sound, evidence-based decision making for a prosperous future.

Discover Life (www.discoverlife.org) proposes to work with the USGS and other partners to provide the leadership, infrastructure, curricula, and training to have schools run ecological research sites, teach science, and solve environmental problems.