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Your iPhone is not living up to its full potential. Sure, everyone loves posting pictures of their cats to Instagram, and the new RadioLab app is awesome. But we’re living in the future! Why not use those tiny computers we’re all carrying around for something bigger, like helping advance knowledge in a way that would have been impossible just a few years ago?

Scientists have started to use the abilities and prevalence of smartphones to their advantage, creating apps specifically for their studies and crowdsourcing observation and data collection. When almost everyone has an Internet connection, a camera, and a GPS unit right in their phone, almost anyone can gather, organize, and submit data to help move a study along. Here are 10 projects and apps that will turn you into a citizen scientist.

1. Track Bird Populations
EBird, started by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, is the world’s largest (97,987,797 observations as of the morning of July 10, 2012) online database of bird observations. Data gathered by smartphone-toting bird watchers around the world and shared via the BirdLog app is used by biologists, ornithologists, educators, land managers, conservationists and policy makers to track avian distribution, richness and biodiversity trends. They hope that “in time these data will become the foundation for a better understanding of bird distribution across the western hemisphere and beyond.” BirdLog is available for $9.99 iOS and Android devices

2. Map Meteoroids
NASA’s Meteor Counter app lets iOS users gather and share data about cosmic debris they spot in the sky. Using the app’s “piano key” interface, citizen scientists can quickly record the time, magnitude, latitude and longitude, and estimated brightness of shooting stars, and also annotate their observations with voice notes. When they’re done, they can upload everything to NASA so researchers can analyze the data. Don’t know where to look for meteors? The app also has a news feed and event calendar updated by professional astronomers to help you find upcoming meteor showers. Meteor Counter is available for free for iOS devices.

3. Listen in on Bats
The Indicator Bats Program (iBats), a joint project of the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology and The Bat Conservation Trust, got its start with a couple of researchers working in Transylvania (of course) in 2006. The idea of the project is to identify and monitor bat populations around the world by the ultrasonic echo-location calls they use to navigate and find prey. No easy task for the naked ear, but the iBats app can automatically extract key information from the calls, and identify the species from them. From there, the data gets sent to iBats so researchers can track any changes in abundance or distribution of different species. The app itself is free, but users also need an ultrasonic microphone to plug into their phone so the app can “hear” the call. These microphones can cost hundreds of dollars, and the folks behind the project encourage bat lovers to get together and chip in for one to share. iBats is available for free for iOS and Android devices.

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