Overview
Peconic Baykeeper has been doing real environmental work on eastern Long Island since 1998 — not demonstration science, not simulated research. The organization uses science, law, and community action to protect the Peconic Estuary and the bays that frame it, and two of its programs put kids and families directly in the middle of that work. This is one of those rare finds where showing up with a smartphone is genuinely enough to contribute.
Your child does actual field science here
Project R.I.S.E. (All ages) (Recording Inundation Surrounding the Estuary) is a community science initiative built around 15 monitoring stations placed at coastal sites across the Peconic Estuary. At each station, a specially mounted phone cradle lets participants capture standardized photos of the shoreline, which get submitted to a public Chronolog database and compiled into a time-lapse that anyone can view. The goal is to document how the coastline is changing over time — tracking inundation, erosion, and sea level rise at specific, named locations, not in the abstract.
The science here is real. Each photo becomes part of a permanent, publicly accessible record that Peconic Baykeeper and partner organizations including the Nature Conservancy, Peconic Land Trust, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service use to understand and respond to coastal change. Participants are encouraged to capture images during storm events and extreme tides when it's safe to do so — those are the submissions that matter most.
Horseshoe Crab Monitoring (All ages, with adult) runs a different kind of survey. In partnership with the Long Island Horseshoe Crab Monitoring Network and the South Shore Estuary Reserve, Peconic Baykeeper monitors a spawning site off Meadow Lane in Southampton during the full and new moon tides from May through June. Volunteers count and tag crabs as they come ashore — roughly one-hour evening surveys, around 15 total sessions per season. The data drives management decisions for a species that has survived largely unchanged for hundreds of millions of years and is now under real pressure from harvesting and habitat loss. Horseshoe crabs are a keystone species: their eggs feed threatened migratory shorebirds, and their blood is used by the pharmaceutical industry to detect bacterial contamination. Understanding where populations are headed matters.
Who It's For
The child who wants to be outside doing something that counts. Both programs reward patience and attention — the noticer, the kid who actually wants to understand why something is disappearing. Project R.I.S.E. works at any age with a parent alongside; Horseshoe Crab Monitoring asks volunteers to commit to multiple evening sessions and suits older kids and teens who can stay focused for an hour in the dark on a beach. Either way, this isn't observation from a distance. Your child is part of the survey.
Cost & Information
All programs and events are free or low-cost.
- Project R.I.S.E. · Year-round
- Horseshoe Crab Monitoring · May–June evenings
(contact in advance — volunteers should be able to commit to multiple sessions) - Events · Year-round