Last Thursday, a team of scientists spurred into action by E. O. Wilson, a Harvard professor emeritus and Nobel laureate biologist, premiered The Encyclopedia of Life, an online compendium designed to eventually list detailed information about all of the planet's 1.8 million known species plus each newly discovered one. It's a remarkable undertaking that New Hampshire scientists and institutions should contribute to and educators should take advantage of.

The task is daunting. The website (eol.org) was launched with 30,000 species. Only limited information is available for most species, but the site's creators chose 25 to focus on in depth to suggest what the encyclopedia will eventually become.

Some of the highlighted species, among them the eastern white pine, peregrine falcon, black and yellow argiope spider, tomato, potato, caddis fly and the critically endangered American burying beetle can be found in New Hampshire.

Register - it's free, which is part of the point - and you can read about the species, see arrays of thumbnail photos that expand at a click, hear bird calls and animal noises, and watch videos. One, for example, shows a peregrine falcon chick hatching from an egg, another a peregrine adult feeding its snow-white chicks.

People who quail at the sight of one of those giant, yellow and black garden spiders that make their beautiful orbed webs bounce like a trampoline when they're threatened, will learn that they are not aggressive and if they can be persuaded to bite, the effect is no greater than that of a bee sting. The squeamish, however, may not want to watch burying beetle grubs writhe on the furry remains of the animal they've played undertaker to.

Unlike Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that can be edited by its readers, the project's scientists screen every entry in the Encyclopedia of Life for accuracy. Though this function appears to be in rudimentary form, the site offers researchers deeper levels of information with each click.

One screen, for example, indexes reference sources in scientific journals. Others show the species distribution or list a gene sequence. The encyclopedia is also filled with links to other sources, including participating organizations like Harvard University, Chicago's Field Museum and The Smithsonian.

Wilson and the other scientists behind the encyclopedia hope it will make it possible to collect and disseminate information about new species faster than now possible, particularly in developing countries where access to libraries is limited. But their biggest hope is that digitizing the information and making the encyclopedia free on the web will spur greater interest in, and respect for, all of the planet's living things, a respect that will lead to conservation efforts.

We have another hope for the encyclopedia. Most of today's children and youth, even those living in the country or where woods separate suburbs, suffer from what journalist Richard Louv dubbed "nature deficit disorder." Parental fear of the outdoors, and lives lived in front of computer screens or on playing fields, have robbed children of a wonder at and love of nature that has been part of the human psyche from the beginning.

The encyclopedia, if the young can be lured into using it, may assuage their fear of the outside world's unknowns and pique their curiosity. Parents and teachers could use the encyclopedia, for example, to create a scavenger hunt that will lead young minds back to nature. Who knows? Once they see, hear and learn about a plant or animal online, they just might be moved to go outside and find the real thing.