So far, scientists have named about 1.9 million living species, and that’s just a fraction of what probably exists on Earth. Now, an international team of researchers has a Web-based Encyclopedia of Life (EoL). The project aims to catalog every species on Earth in a single, easy-to-use reference guide.

Encyclopedia of Life

For starters, the creators have already uploaded a lot of information from scientific databases that already exist. Nonscientists with specialized knowledge are also able to contribute to EoL. Bird-watchers, for example, are able to input which birds they’ve seen and where.

As the EoL develops into a full fledged website, you might find it useful for school projects. The site will feature special pages for kids. To make sure the encyclopedia is accurate, scientists will review much of the information added to it.

Another useful feature of the EoL is that you’ll be able to pick the level of information you see to match your interests, age, and current knowledge. If you wanted to learn about polar bears for a science class report, for example, you could use the “novice” setting to get basic information about the animals. On the “expert” setting, on the other hand, you could get much more detailed information about the history, literature, and exploration of polar bears.

Keep an eye on www.eol.org. It is highly useful for your school reports. Right now EoL has more than 1.3 million pages. They are also launching a new version of the website sometime soon.