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This paper discusses the historical connections between two large-scale undertakings that became exemplars for worldwide data-driven scientific initiatives after World War II: the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958) and the International Biological Program (1964–1974). The International Biological Program was seen by its planners as a means to promote Big Science in ecology. As the term Big Science gained currency in the 1960s, the Manhattan Project and the national space program became paradigmatic examples, but the International Geophysical Year provided scientists with an alternative model: a synoptic collection of observational data on a global scale. This new, potentially complementary model of Big Science encompassed the field practices of ecologists and suggested a model for the natural historical sciences to achieve the stature and reach of the experimental physical sciences. However …