PLOTS is an open community -- you're welcome to simply sign up and start contributing in a variety of ways. We are also open to more formal collaborations, just ask staff@publiclaboratory.org

###Some ways to be a part of the community:###

* Email the list to say hello and describe your interests, reach out for collaborators, or look for somewhere you can help out
* Ask for help with a public science issuse
* add to existing pages (most are editable by any [registered user](/user/register), wiki-style)
* co-author [articles & papers](/media) (in research journals, newspaper op-eds, magazines, etc) with other community members
* co-author grants for research and for working with specific communities
* contribute to better [documentation](/wiki/guides) (tutorials, diagrams, even just offering critique) of the [tools](/tools) we all use
* organize a [local group](/places) to investigate environmental, social, and other issues in a participatory way
* adopt and contribute to units of our curriculum (mainly the [mapping curriculum](/wiki/mapping-curriculum) at this point) in universities, schools, and public workshops -- use some of our resources and add your own. Also see the [guides](/wiki/guides) we're starting to develop for our tools.

Feel free to just jump in and start adding content to our site (it's a wiki), but a great place to start is to [sign up for an account on this site](/user/register).

###Areas we need specific help in:###

* organizing meetups with residents in our [partner communities](/places) to test new tools and gather data with proven ones
* developing better and more comprehensive documentation & tutorials around our existing tools
* archiving and publishing consistent data sets (from spreadsheets and geotiffs to interviews with community members)
* outreach to research, policy, and legal institutions (Environmental Law Clinics, for example) to get our data adopted and used