2016 Google Science Fair Grand Prize given for a 'basement science' project!

Use this as inspiration, and this story reflects the whole purpose of this web site:

Teenager Kiara Nirghin of South Africa won the 2016 Google Science Fair top prize for her work in trying to solve a local problem. South Africa was in the midst of a severe drought, and a majority of its people were beginning to feel pressure with food insecurity since crops were dying. Kiara was determined to help solve this problem by inventing a homemade chemical using orange and avocado peels that can hold 300 times its weight in water. By planting this mixture next to growing plants, the plants did significantly better and could survive much longer in the drought conditions.

This is an amazing example of the type of science and discovery one can do without funding, professional labs, and in one's basement!!

It takes identifying something of interest, breaking it down into fundamental pieces - think about what quantities and parameters might affect whatever it is you are interested in - and then create experiments to test how any of those parameters affects the system. Often one can find a local problem that requires a unique and new solution, and teens are fully capable of figuring such problems out!!

Just try it if you are curious about something!! You're likely to amaze yourself!

Citizen Science - A chance for anyone to be involved

Citizen science has become a type of research that has exploded in the past few decade. Because some areas of research are so vast, and have enormous numbers of measurements or data points that need to be looked at, or cover huge areas of physical space, there is no good way for an individual or small team of researchers to make the necessary observations or analyze the 'big data' sets that are collected. The solution - call the calvary! That is, make a bigger research team by getting volunteers, who are non-scientists and non-experts in the field, but who can help get through the data or make additional observations that otherwise would not be possible!

Keep in mind, these projects may give you some spin-off ideas for an individual project you can try, especially those that involve field work. Use these to find inspiration and trigger your own imagination!

Check out Zooniverse to see dozens of research projects that need help from someone just like you! National Geographic has numerous projects. There are many more, too, as listed on this Wikipedia page.