With global warming fast becoming a global priority, thanks to environmental crusaders like former Vice President Al Gore, the science community is enlisting amateurs to make its job easier.

A new program at the New York Botanical Garden is offering volunteers a chance to study climate change while exploring its 50-acre natural forest.

This fall, 30 volunteers signed up for the citizen scientist program and will collect phenologic data that will be passed on to the United States of America National Phenology Network, an organization that helps scientists studying climate change obtain necessary data.

Phenology is the study of the timing of natural events and has been used for thousands of years by people around the globe to note when plants germinate or flower.

“Plants tend to be much more reactive to climate change than animals,” said Jake Weltzin, the phenology network’s executive director. Weltzin works for the United States Geological Survey, which, along with the Fish & Wildlife Service, National Science Foundation and other partners, supports the network.

Plants provide food or shelter to many animals and insects, so a delay in plant growth could be disastrous, Weltzin said. Timing of bud development can also help scientists predict, for example, when plants such as ragweed will bloom and cause allergies.

Monitoring plants in every forest, garden or yard would overwhelm scientists, Weltzin said, so the network relies on volunteers.

A group of seven citizen scientists at the Garden taking a training session earlier this fall included Fordham University students, a semi-retired medical laboratory worker, a former pre-school teacher and a guide at Teatown Lake Reservation, in Mt. Kisco, New York.

Some citizen scientists have years of volunteer service at the Garden, while others, like Fordham University senior Elyse Santoro and recent graduate Krystina Holak, have spent little or no time in the Garden.

Dr. Christina Colon, the Garden’s curator of curriculum development, said that phenology is a good introduction into the science field because it requires no prior scientific education. Once an observer knows what to look for, such as a leaf changing color or a fruit maturing and dropping, spotting changes is easy.

Santoro signed up for the program because she thought that participating might help her understand or connect more with a school project. Plus, she said, monitoring trees would also allow her to spend more time outside.

Holak said that her home state, Nevada, has a much different landscape and tree population than New York.

“This is a completely new experience,” Holak said, as she and James Boyer, the Garden’s director for teacher and professional development, walked through the forest discussing different leaf types.

Boyer, Colon and Daniel Avery, the Garden’s sustainability and climate change program manager, helped the volunteers identify and track changes to the 24 trees selected for monitoring. The compiled data will be entered into an on-line database, which eventually will be viewed by real scientists studying climate change.

If successful, Weltzin said, the Garden’s program could be used as a template for future programs at other botanical gardens across the country.

Boyer said one appeal of the program is that spending time in a natural forest can help people reconnect with nature. “You experience this forest in a way that most people don’t have the opportunity to do,” he said.