In the News – Citizen Science Today

Do-it-yourself science is taking off – Punk science

The Economist — Tue, 01 May 2018 18:00:56 +0000

Excerpt: In 1977, in the very heavenly dawn of London’s punk-rock scene, a crude, photocopied magazine told its readers: “This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now start a band.” They did so by the thousand. Now that punk aesthetic has come to science. Citizen science has been around for ages—professional...

Editor’s Choice: ASU partners with public libraries to advance citizen science

Britt Lewis — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 18:00:29 +0000

Editor’s Choice: This press release highlights the critical partnership between citizen science and libraries that needs to be further explored and exploited. It makes so much sense to link libraries with citizen science – after all, libraries serve as a community’s shared access point to a wealth of information that can provide the stepping stones...

Citizen Scientists Chase Total Solar Eclipse

Rachael Lallensack — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 18:00:44 +0000

Excerpt: Fred Isberner is a retired healthcare professor in Carbondale, Illinois. But on 21 August, the 69-year-old will be collecting data about the Sun’s superheated outer atmosphere during a total solar eclipse. Isberner is one of thousands of people across the United States who plan to gather data during the event. Their combined efforts will...

Solar eclipse ionosphere study will be crowdsourced citizen science project

Ben Guarino — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:00:47 +0000

Excerpt: On Aug. 21, as the moon passes in front of the sun and casts a shadow across the United States, millions are expected to gaze at the totality. Meanwhile, a smaller crowd will be glued to 150 custom-made radio receivers set up across the country. The project, called EclipseMob, is the largest experiment of...

European Stakeholder Round Table on Citizen and DIY Science and Responsible Research and Innovation

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:00:44 +0000

Excerpt: In her introduction to the round table, Dr. Katrin Vohland, Director of the Research Programme “Public Engagement with Science” and Executive Chair of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), reflected on the importance and challenges for CS in the current situation in Europe. Two opposing trends that can be observed: On one hand, science...

Friendly Wake-up Calls and Fine Tomatoes

Roger Nickl — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:00:33 +0000

Excerpt: Citizens who research and gather data: digital media are opening up whole new ways for science to arrive at new insights. Citizen science is in gold rush fever, with researchers around the world – at University of Zurich (UZH) as well − sounding out the potential of crowd-sourced research and hatching promising new project...

Detecting dangers with crowdsourcing

Provided by Harvard University — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:00:07 +0000

Excerpt: By the time officials in Flint, Mich., declared a state of emergency in response dangerously high levels of lead in the city’s drinking water in mid-December of 2015, residents had been complaining to each other about discolored and foul-smelling drinking water for more than a year. That time lag, between residents identifying a potential...

Editor’s Choice: Citizen Science Delivers “Unprecedented View” of Monarch Butterfly Parasitoids

Entomology Today — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:00:05 +0000

Editor’s Choice: One of Citizen Science’s most iconic projects, the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, yields another excellent research result and a great lesson for all citizen science projects. By better understanding how certain species of flies impact monarch butterfly populations, researchers can better pinpoint which are human-based factors in monarch decline. — LFF — Excerpt:...

Climate change’s impact on Southern Africa is captured in the photos of a citizen science project

Sarah Wild — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 18:00:18 +0000

Excerpt: Scientists expect Africa to be hardest hit by climate change: its dependence on agriculture, hot temperatures, and poor infrastructure mean its citizens are likely to feel the pressure of a changing climate more than most others. But there are big gaps in our knowledge of how ecosystems and microclimates work. “We don’t have an...

Editor’s Choice: Endangered Bumble Bee Gets Help From Citizen Scientists

Eva Lewandowski — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 18:00:18 +0000

Editor’s Choice: Biological observations require patience. Biological conservation calls for urgency. When citizen science works in concert with national policy, it allows us to coordinate slow and rapid paced efforts. This is necessary to gain traction on challenging issues. For specific actions you can take to help the rusty patched bumble bee, read the species...