Steve Sullivan is the Curator of Urban Ecology for the Chicago Academy of Sciences where he studies the animals in your back yard as well as working with the institution’s century-and-a-half old specimens and doing the taxidermy to make new ones. Steve is also the director of Project Squirrel, a citizen-science project that involves people of all ages in the study of tree squirrels as a way to understand ecological processes in the urban game park. Additionally, the Project studies the most influential species in the urban ecosystem – humans—and how their involvement with the outdoors influences their attitudes and knowledge about nature. This presentation will discuss why squirrels are worth watching and will hopefully inspire the audience and their friends to become involved in watching and submitting data about the squirrels that occur (or not) in their neighborhoods.