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Can school students tangibly protect global biodiversity from their own desks and backyards? The 1 million birds challenge is a coordinated global effort to log 1,000,000 units of verified ecological impact. By participating in targeted citizen science data classification and executing hyper-local environmental mitigations, students act as active field contributors to accelerate real-world conservation.
To maintain strict scientific integrity, our challenge uses a standardized impact scale developed in consultation with professional ornithologists and conservation researchers to translate decentralized student actions into quantitative ecological units preserved.
Who is eligible: All students through grades 6-12 and university, anywhere in the world. Upperclassmen and university students may be more interested and benefit more from the research experiences and sessions offered in concurrence with the challenge, while most will benefit from service hours and certifications.
How to register: Visit our challenge guide to learn how to participate and log your tasks. Fill out our initial Google Form the first time you complete a task with your details. We'll send you weekly reminders and opportunities for the challenge.
How to continue participating: Fill out our Google Form each time you complete a task. Cumulative points will be assessed for final rankings, service hours, and eligibility for research events. Contact bird2branch.nonprofit@gmail.com if you require service hours verifications.
Change the world with service, and learn valuable engineering and research skills along the way in 6 simple steps.
1. Complete a simple task or small hands-on initiative (takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 hours) based on our challenge guide.
2. Submit your first task to the form, along with your information!
3. Keep completing different tasks in batches and resubmitting the form to log hours and the amount of birds supported.
4. Check your email for a project challenge every week or 2, inviting you to turn what you've learn and done into research!
5. Following email instructions, present and submit the research to save even more birds and climb the ranks on the leaderboard.
6. Stay active with logging hours with these tiny tasks. Join research events and resources to support your academic journey!
There are two primary ways to complete tasks. You can do one or both depending on what suits your interested and what you are able to dedicate large amounts of time to in the summer!
Access global wildlife datasets via vetted platforms like Zooniverse, 100% virtually and from anywhere at any time. Assist researchers by classifying camera trap data and processing environmental field data.
Execute low-friction, high-yield ecological interventions in your local community, such as picking up plastic debris in neighborhoods. Every verified local mitigation action directly reduces environmental hazards; track accomplishments together with your friends!
Resources offered to active challenge participants that will support them through the challenge process, only available to those that have logged at least 50 units in the past week!
We'll be coordinating a series of workshops with industry professionals and faculty at a diverse range of universities to guide you through the importance of citizen science and supplement your volunteering experience with research certifications.
Past people we've hosted: The founder of USACO, the AI in Medicine director at Ohio State University, a Texas A&M engineering faculty and international fellow, and Harvard OpenBio Lab researchers.
1:1 and small group coffee chats with Bird2Branch staff on translating service hours and volunteering experience into tangible and technical research. Real researchers that have published in international conferences and peer-reviewed journals.
Researchers available to chat have worked with: MIT Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Harvard SEAS, Harvard OpenBio, New York Academy of Sciences.
Premier student researchers from our past challenges will present award-winning projects and oral symposiums, then open it up on questions on how to build conservation projects of your own.
Incentives will be offered to submit your own projects with the guidance of Bird2Branch staff to earn service hours and provide long-lasting environmental solutions, which factors into the final ranking.
Every participant who crosses the baseline impact threshold will receive an official, verified Certification of Ecological Data Science and Engineering from our fiscally sponsored 501(c)(3) organization. This document provides a verified log of your field and research hours to directly fulfill service requirements for major national scholarships and top-tier honor societies.
The top 5% of highest-impact students will be elevated to Bird2Branch Summer Research Fellows. Fellows will earn an exclusive invitation to design and pitch open-source mitigation blueprints and localized data findings at a virtual colloquium. You will present live to panels of active researchers, graduate mentors, and academic affiliates from prestigious institutions, including major university research labs, earning invaluable feedback and elite network connections for your academic portfolio.
The top 5 global impact leaders, having protected the most birds, will receive an exclusive individual profile and case study feature highlighting their project leadership. They will not just participate in a research fellowship; this executive spotlight will be published and distributed on Bird2Branch's publication, and directly across our founder’s prominent professional network of over 8,000+ STEM innovators and university researchers. These top winners will also secure official revision and preprinting of collaborative research work as a technical working paper, receiving a DOI and acclaimed credential.
The top 3 high school contributors will receive a free, exclusive, one-on-one college supplemental essay review by Next Admit, run by MIT and Harvard entrepeneurs as seen in Business Insider, with 94% of clients getting into at least 1/6 of their top schools across 10,000+ essays reviewed, such as Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Princeton, and Brown. One of your most important college supplements will be personally reviewed, critiqued, and edited by a staff member admitted to a prestigious university to help optimize your positioning for top-tier admissions pipelines after your experience at Bird2Branch; these include staff admitted to Harvard, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern, Duke, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, Rice, Brown, and MIT.
This challenge was due March 1st at 11:59 PM EST.
Congratulations to our winners!
1st place: Rylan Wang & Neha Tummala
2nd place: Sanjana Kola & Yohann Lopes
3rd place: Lindsey Tea, Luciana Cabrera, & Salette Torres
Honorable mentions: Kirti Katari, Gabriela Segura, Keya Modi & Khushpreet Kaur, SaanviSri Karnakanti
Prompt: Explore how molecular shape affects real-world function in food (flavors, aromas, nutrients), medicine (drug activity, chirality), materials (polymers, plastics, etc.), the envrionment, or anything else that you can imagine. You are welcome to choose a molecule to research and build your project theme around, invent a theoretical one of your own and support it with scientifically sound concepts, expand on or create a lab procedure that would change synthesis for a certain compound, and more!
Browse through some inspiring submissions for the stereochemistry challenge, involving research proposals, video presentations, investigative projects, and even 3D models, in-person presentations, and meaningful community outreach!
1st place
CYP2B6-Mediated Stereoselective Metabolism of Bupropion and Its Association with Hydroxybupropion Enantiomer Ratios and Fatigue Severity
Rylan Wang and Neha Tummala, Arizona College Prep High School, USA
Rylan and Neha performed an in-depth literature review on CYP2B6 metabolism. They created an informational brochure to gather feedback from science teachers and ran a webinar-style presentation at Schoolhouse.
Schoolhouse materials: Presentation, photo 1, photo 2
Brochure: Page 1, page 2, teacher photo
2nd place
Chemical Shape Kills: Diclofenac's Threat to Vultures
Sanjana Kola and Yohann Lopes, Frisco High School, USA
Sanjana and Yohaan researched about the mechanism of action of diclofenac, which results in the death of thousands of vultures. They presented their project to an audience of 23, and partnered with a student nonprofit where 8 students wrote 15 letters to the Frisco Green Team to encourage community awareness. They then displayed visually engaging posters in community spaces.
Posters: Design 1, design 2, design 3
Access letters, presentation lesson, and documented impact.
3rd place
How PFOS Affect Birds and the Environment
Salette Torres, Lindsey Tea, and Luciana Cabrera, NeoCity Academy, USA
Salette, Lindsey, and Luciana presented a compelling slideshow about PFOS to four STEM classrooms and created a PSA to share in their community.
See their dedicated Instagram account's PSA here and here.
Presentation photos: Photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5, photo 6
Honorable Mention
The Role of Polymer Stereochemistry in Menstrual Pads and Its Impact on Women’s Health
Keya Modi and Khushpreet Kaur, Castlebrooke Secondary School, Canada
Keya and Khushpreet created a research report connecting polymer stereochemistry to menstrual pad safety. They shared findings with peers and STEM clubs.
See their planning document here and hand-drawn diagrams here.
Honorable mention
Mirror Molecules in Perfumes
Kirti Katari, Dublin Jerome High School, USA
Kirti edited a compelling, informative video about stereochemistry and perfumes, then shared posters and social media stories to raise awareness of her topic and its relevance for fashion idols, such as in K-pop.
See her story here and its Instagram presence here.
View student reactions to her presentation: Student 1, Student 2, Student 3
Honorable mention
The Mirror-life Hypothesis and the Secrets of Geosmin in Stereochemistry
SaanviSri Karnakanti, Farmington High School, USA
SaanviSri turned research paper into a fun mini-lesson at a media center, presented a slide deck at a school STEM club, and contacted a microbiology teacher to bring the project to the community.
Honorable mention
Molecular Mimicry in SARS-CoV-2 Proteins: Promoting Autoimmunity in Humans
Gabriela Segura, Uplift Williams Preparatory, USA
Based on her experience of chronic migraines and long-COVID, Gabriela's original analysis examined bibliometric trends in relevant literature and primary explored effects in stereochemistry. She shared the presentation with her class and posted to raise awareness about the ~400 million patients with long-COVID.
See her presentation here and informative Instagram post here.
Competition entry
Stereochemistry-Based Spoilage Indicators in Food Packaging
Nitya Hapani, The Galaxy School, Saurashtra, India
Nitya designed a poster about food spoilage and how stereochemistry can detect it based on research, presented to a class, and also created a food waste logging sheet for communities to demonstrate the scale of avoidable food waste.
See Nitya's poster, presentation talk, community logging sheet, and a group discussion about the logging results here.
Competition entry
Ibuprofen - Active and Inactive
Alyssa Mosteller, West Lincoln High School, USA
Alyssa shared her research paper with students at her school and volunteered at an over-the-counter medicine giveaway event with Atrium Health.
See the in-depth research process for her short proposal here.
Competition entry
"Lumina"
Akniyet Kusaingazina and Zhamilya Tokatrbek, Almaty High School for Girls, Kazakhstan
Akniyet and Zhamilya sent out a survey to assess purchasing behavior and awareness of teens. Using the findings, a research project addressing environmental sustainability and the proposal of an app idea, LUMINA, to evaluate ingredient safety, was designed.
Competition entry
Mirror Matters: How Stereochemistry Shapes Medicines and Saves Lives
Kamrul Hassan, Fyruz Education Services, Bangladesh
Kamrul explored the importance of stereoisomerism and shared a one-page infographic with classmates explaining how enantiomers could have major impacts in medicine, using simple language for high school students to understand.
See the community awareness summary here and infographic here.
Competition entry
Axial Chirality and Atropisomerism: The Role of Advanced Stereochemistry in Modern Drug Design
Rosa Edquen Oblitas, Coar San Martin, Perú
Rosa delivered a presentation on stereochemistry and environmental case studies at school, then designed a simple infographic and organized a small model workshop for students to build molecules.
See the presentation in color here.
Competition entry
Stereochemistry in Medicine: When Molecular Shape Saves Lives
Ifza Zia, IUNC Pharmacy College, Karachi, Pakistan
Ifza created a research paper and delivered an interactive micro-workshop for a pharmacy class.
Competition entry
"Nanotex"
Fatima Guadalupe Cabrera Laurente, Data Science Research Peru, Perú
Fatima designed a project idea to eliminate microplastics, creating a proposal in great detail. She then shared a video in her native language about the impact of microplastics and how nanotechnology utilizing stereochemistry can create relevant solutions.
See the video here.
Curated, research-based articles, templates and other tutorials are created by our staff for each challenge and posted on this page so that no beginner, amateur, or curious mind is left alone. Our staff create monthly prompts, highlights top submissions, and manages proper expertise for judging and spotlight selection.
Access info & slide decks from our live kickoff event here: https://www.bird2branch.org/events#h.y9suekfneaw8
A free, reproducible template for you to put together a research write-up for the Sandbox challenge.
A free, reproducible template for you to put together a creative project for the Sandbox challenge.
Demographic requirements: All students high school and up are permitted to compete regardless of age or country of origin. All projects must be submitted in English to avoid hurdles with judging.
Contestants may choose one of the 4 formats below. The project should not take an extensive amount of time to create, and formats are meant to be accessible and fun.
Research write-up
Address a stereochemistry concept or idea and its real-world impact.
Include your own diagrams or pictures (hand-drawn or online tools encouraged), not images from the internet.
Submit a document with 1-2 pages of length.
Creative project
Build a 3D molecular model using household items, printed kits, or software (e.g., MolView).
This can be an existing molecule or one that you designed on your own that could be scientifically accurate.
Submit a document with photos and explanation, or a short explanatory video including your model.
Illustration
Make an informative illustration, infographic, comic, or digital diagram.
Highlight a molecule, concept, idea, or real world application.
Submit a document (for a comic with multiple pages) or high-resolution image.
Short Reflection and Presentation
Explain a concept you explored, real-world connection, and how it ties into STEM, conservation, or your own interests.
Use slides, video editing, props, skits, and/or music to make your video compelling.
Include a call to action.
Feel free to bring friends, family, and pets into this!
No matter the format chosen, it is required for the contestant to do at least three impactful things for the community with their project. This can be as small as presenting to their science class about their research or getting a few friends together to clean up the specific pollutants they mention. Photos and supplementary material of these actions must be uploaded to the submission form, and a few additional questions reflecting on the project must also be answered.
Submit all work through the official Google Form. In addition to uploading your project file and supplementary materials, you will be asked for name, grade, and school, project title, submission format (write-up, model, illustration, video), your 3 impactful actions, and a few other reflections about your project.
We hosted a kickoff webinar and virtual lab diving into stereochemistry, providing examples of molecules and crafts that could serve as good submissions. Check out the resources at our events page here.
Kickoff Webinar and Lab: January 25th
Submission Deadline: March 1st
Feedback and Winners: Within 2 weeks after submissions close, everyone will be contacted with results.
Your projects are going to be evaluated on creativity, originality, clarity of explanation, community intention and impact, and connection to the theme and STEM concepts.
Prizes and incentives include:
Certifications and credential badges
Social media spotlight with 5k+ audience
LinkedIn endorsement & letter of recommendation
Projects published in Bird2Branch Sandbox
Collaborate with mentors that have published peer-reviewed research to transform work into a professional preprint
Be invited to small group mentorship for conference & community impact opportunities regarding the project
If you need any guidance, you are welcome to contact us at bird2branch.nonprofit@gmail.com! You should also ask your teachers at your school for opinions and critique on your work.
Your submission does not need to be flashy, a simple diagram paired with a clear explanation can gain recognition as long as it's concise, meaningful, and explains your idea. We are looking for scientific potential, not influencer TikToks.
You don’t need to come up with a very specific idea right off the bat. Take your time and find an area of interest, then research about it. It's the best way to dive into deeper rabbit holes and find something that you can ultimately use as inspiration for your main idea.
Create multiple drafts, practice makes progress and that is how you can make your project go from good to great.
Use reliable sources. School databases and online databases like Google Scholar can be very helpful!
Bird2Branch's Sandbox previously hosted regularly updated resource guides and informative blogs, which served as helpful for career exploration and securing research opportunities.
Our posts served as a platform to students, researchers, and professionals for sharing information, current events, commentary, and tips in regards to the connection of birds and STEM, fine arts, and the human experience. Though the resource guides and blogs have been discontinued, existing materials remain on this page as helpful references to interested students.
All opinionated pieces are reflective of the writers' attitudes and not the organization as a whole, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
An introduction to various fields in STEM and the arts, and how they relate to ornithology. Dive deep into the world of birds and pursue what piques your interest! Each section includes analysis and engaging aspects of what you could explore, and a list of helpful resources, competitions, and valuable opportunities that could be once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Feel free to skim through certain sections you are certain you have no interest in, but trying things out by simply reading this comprehensive guide would be strongly advised.
In this resource guide, we will go in-depth on the significance of avian conservation, why current efforts aren't enough, and what you can do for the cause via getting involved in Bird2Branch and seeking your own opportunities. This guide also cites to many sources and research about avian conservation that you can use to kickstart your own project, and links to dozens of contests and university courses to build expertise about environmental impacts and its overlap with many fields.
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