By: Amy Zvonar
Make a New Year’s resolution to submit data every month of 2026.
As we enter the new year, the AWW staff is hard at work planning our 2026 Annual Meeting. This year, we are especially looking forward to recognizing all of the volunteers who accomplished the 12/12 Challenge in 2025.
Read on to learn more about this new recognition and what you can do to earn it as an AWW volunteer monitor in 2026!
The 12/12 challenge recognizes individual AWW monitors and monitor teams that submit at least one data record each month of the calendar year. Volunteers who met this challenge in 2025 will be recognized at the AWW Annual Meeting in June 2026.
But what about monitors who did not get the chance to submit data every month of 2025? Perhaps you were not yet certified at the start of 2025, or maybe you had to miss a month or two of data collecting for any number of reasons. We have good news! January 2026 kicks-off a new 12/12 challenge. Make sure to submit your monitoring data this month, and continue to do so each month of 2026.
If meeting the 12/12 challenge seems too daunting at first, here are a few tips from our staff to help you be successful:
Tip 1: Register for the challenge! Registering will help you stay committed to the challenge. Registration is not required for individual monitors in 2026, but it will help AWW staff keep track of your progress.
Tip 2: If you monitor with a partner or a team, you can still qualify for the 12/12 challenge! Please make sure to register your team here so we can include every person on the team in the challenge!
Tip 3: Select a recurring date, like the 15th of each month or the 3rd Saturday of each month, to sample. Setting a regular date makes it easier to reserve time for sampling each month.
Tip 4: Don’t forget to plan time for submitting your data. Try to submit your data on the day you sample. If this is not possible, set a monthly reminder on your calendar to submit your data!
Tip 5: If you forget to submit your data for a month, don’t worry! You can still enter it into the database even if you are a month or two behind. As long as you have 12 months of data submitted before the start of the next year, you will still qualify for the 12/12 challenge!
Tip 6: Look for AWW’s quarterly data snapshot emails. These emails will help you track how many data records you have submitted. If you forget to submit data during a quarter, you will get a “We Miss You” email. This email will remind you to submit any data you collected but did not submit to the database!
Tip 7: Make monitoring fun! Take a picnic to your site, count the number of different animals you see, or do a litter clean-up while you are there. If you look forward to visiting your site, it will be easier to go each month.
If you have any of your own tips to share, reach out to us at awwprog@auburn.edu!
We look forward to recognizing our 2025 12/12 Challenge cohort at our annual meeting in Opelika, AL on June 06, 2026. Will you be joining in 2026?