IN FLOATING FORESTS WE SEEK TO HARNESS TO POWER OF LANDSAT DATA AND CITIZEN SCIENCE TO UNDERSTAND HOW AND WHY GIANT KELP FORESTS HAVE CHANGED AROUND THE PLANET OVER THE PAST THIRTY YEARS. MOREOVER WE HOPE TO USE OUR CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT AS A TEST CASE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A USER-FRIENDLY INTERFACE FOR THE CREATION OF ONLINE LANDSAT-BASED CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECTS AT THE ZOONIVERSE (HTTP:// ZOONIVERSE.ORG). LAST WE SEEK TO ENHANCE ENGAGEMENT FOR THIS AND FUTURE PROJECTS VIA THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACCESSIBLE VISUALIZATION TOOLS AND CURRICULA FOR UNIVERSITY AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. DURING THE PROTOTYPE PHASE WE COMPLETED A TOTAL OVERHAUL OF OUR LANDSAT IMAGE PROCESSING PIPELINE FOR CREATING IMAGERY FOR CITIZEN SCIENCE CLASSIFICATION. WE CONDUCTED A BETA AND COMPLETE RELAUNCH OF OUR PLATFORM AT HTTP://FLOATINGFORESTS.ORG WHICH INCLUDED THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW SMARTPHONE APP. THIS HAS SEEN TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLASSIFICATIONS AND OVER ONE THOUSAND UNIQUE USERS SINCE THE LAUNCH ON DECEMBER 13 2017. WE DEVELOPED AND TESTED A UNIVERSITY LEVEL SET OF LAB EXERCISES WITH FLOATING FORESTS AT ITS CORE AT A PRIMARILY UNDERGRADUATE AND MINORITY SERVING INSTITUTION. WE MADE AVAILABLE ALL OF THE DATA FROM VERSION 1.0 OF OUR PLATFORM WHICH CONSISTED OF ~750 000 CLASSIFICATIONS. LAST WE USED THIS DATA TO VALIDATE OUR CITIZEN SCIENCE BASED APPROACH TO LANDSAT CLASSIFICATION AND FOUND THAT OUR CONSENSUS BASED CLASSIFICATION APPROACH AGREED VERY WELL WITH EXPERT CLASSIFICATIONS. IN THE IMPLEMENTATION PHASE WE WILL EXPAND FLOATING FORESTS TO MAP CHANGE IN GLOBAL KELP COVER FROM THE 1980S TO THE PRESENT. WE WILL IDENTIFY TRENDS IN GLOBAL KELP COVER EXAMINE WHETHER KELP RANGE LIMITS HAVE SHIFTED AND ASSESS THE DEGREE TO WHICH THESE SHIFTS ARE RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE. WE WILL BUILD AND DEPLOY A USER FRIENDLY GENERALIZED INTERFACE FOR CREATING A LANDSAT- BASED CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT AND DEMONSTRATE IT AT SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS TO FACILITATE ITS ADOPTION. WE WILL BUILD ADDITIONAL VISUALIZATION TOOLS FOR LANDSAT-BASED PROJECTS TO ALLOW CITIZEN SCIENTISTS TO QUICKLY AND EASILY WORK WITH OUR DATA. WE WILL COUPLE THIS WITH ITERATED VERSIONS OF HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY-LEVEL CURRICULA THAT GROW WITH THESE TOOLS. LAST WE WILL MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT DATA PIPELINE SO THAT KELP FOREST CITIZEN AND PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS HAVE EASY DIRECT ACCESS TO OUR DATA.