Kelp Quest (Seattle Aquarium)

Kelp Quest provides volunteers all over the world the opportunity to explore the kelp forests of Washington state! Researchers at the Seattle Aquarium use remotely operated vehicles to conduct scientific surveys of kelp forests by taking photographs, and we’ve trained Machine Learning (ML) models to extract data from these photographs… but we need your help! The ML model is still learning and it makes mistakes, so we need your help to view the ML model’s predictions, and tell us whether it got it right or not.

To do this succesfully, you will need to learn to identify multiple different categories of brown, red, green, and encrusting algae, as well as several seafloor categories. Once you’ve done so, your hard work enables us to refine our ML models and use the data to help guide kelp forest conservation, restoration, and management!