Coyotes on the Web: Understanding Human-Coyote Interaction and Online

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Abstract:

Coyote (Canis latrans) numbers are increasing in urban areas, leading to more frequent human-coyote interactions. Rarely, and particularly when coyotes have become habituated to humans, conflicts occur. Effective education about urban coyotes and how to prevent habituation reduces conflict. Citizen science, in the form of online education, can be used to engage and educate city dwellers about urban coyotes. In this research, I explore Portland Metropolitan Area (PMA) residents’ baseline experiences with, and attitudes toward, urban coyotes. Next, I investigate citizen science as a tool for education. Using the Portland Urban Coyote Project (PUCP), a citizen science project, as a case study, I investigate people’s experiences with citizen science and evaluate whether attitudes and knowledge about coyotes changes after an interactive online educational tool. Most participants had seen a coyote at least once, were generally positive about coyotes, and were well-informed about basic facts. Participants who completed a tutorial that provided basic information about coyotes and dispelled common myths, showed higher knowledge scores and more positive, research-based attitudes. These results suggest that educational tools in citizen science projects can be effective for providing information and shaping attitudes about urban coyotes. Increased public access to education about how to live safely with coyotes is an important tool for proactive management. Online educational tools associated with citizen science projects are a viable option for efficient, inexpensive management of urban coyote populations.

Source: Coyotes on the Web: Understanding Human-Coyote Interaction and Online

Incorporating Citizen Science into Monitoring Hemlock Following Predator Releases for Adelges tsugae (Hemiptera: Adelgidae) Management

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Abstract:

A photograph-based monitoring system was developed to involve citizen scientists in monitoring sites in western North Carolina and northern Georgia where the predators Sasajiscymnus tsugae (Sasaji & McClure) and Laricobius nigrinus Fender had been released as part of the U.S. Forest Service’s biological control program for Adelges tsugae Annand (hemlock woolly adelgid). The study was divided into an initial phase conducted during 2006 and 2007 in Jackson and Macon counties, NC, and Rabun County, GA, and a second phase conducted from 2008 to 2010 in Fannin, Gilmer, Lumpkin, and Union counties, GA. Over the course of the study, 32 volunteers monitored 27 predator release sites and provided 4,356 photographs from which data were obtained. Data from photographs included the number of A. tsugae ovisacs present at each sample site and hemlock needle loss on photographed branches. To ensure accuracy in counting A. tsugae and assessing hemlock needle loss, personnel from Clemson University’s A. tsugae insectary evaluated each photograph for data collection. The citizen scientist volunteers participating in this study allowed us to obtain a large amount of quality data from across the wide geographic range of predator release sites. Obtaining that amount of data would not have been possible using only our laboratory personnel. This study shows that including dedicated and properly trained volunteers in large-scale forest surveys was an effective way to dramatically increase the amount of data we could obtain for use in assessing trends in both the numbers of A. tsugae present and hemlock needle loss at predator release sites.

Source: BioOne Online Journals – Incorporating Citizen Science into Monitoring Hemlock Following Predator Releases for Adelges tsugae (Hemiptera: Adelgidae) Management

Supporting Mobile Learning and Citizen Science Through iSpot

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Abstract:

In today’s connected society people are finding and sharing interests through social networking sites and activities. This connected and inquiry-based learning is a wonderful way for large groups of people to learn more about the world around them. Launched in 2009 by the Open University (OU), iSpot (www.ispotnature.org) taps into this connectivism through a website designed to help close the gap in the general public’s identification skills in relation to natural history. iSpot is a citizen science initiative which engages people through their interest in wildlife, helping them to identify species through a system that connects novices to experts. The website enables participation in scientific research through crowdsourcing species names and also uses communication, engagement combined with learning opportunities, both formal and informal, to reach a wide and diverse audience, taking them on a unique learning journey (Ansine, 2013). It is accessible to all ages and abilities, including children such as 6-year-old Katie, who found a moth not seen in Europe before and whose family used iSpot to identify it (http://www.ispotnature.org/node/7407).

Collated iSpot usage statistics indicate that, up to December 2014, iSpot had a global community of close to 48,000 experts and members of the public who had together shared over 460,000 observations, through 850,000 images of 30,000 taxa. The site was accessed by over a million visits through more than 2.5 million sessions. It is an international platform with UK, Southern Africa, Hong Kong, and Chile communities; most of the observations (85%) are from the UK, with contributions from over 130 other countries (Silvertown et al., 2015).

Source: Supporting Mobile Learning and Citizen Science Through iSpot

Citizens and satellites: Assessment of phytoplankton dynamics in a NW Mediterranean aquaculture zone

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 Abstract:

Ocean colour measurements from space are well suited to assess phytoplankton dynamics over broad spatial scales. Closer to the coast however, the quality of these data degrades as a result of the loading of sediments and dissolved matter from terrestrial runoff, the influences of land reflection on atmospheric correction and sea-bottom reflection, which compromise their use in coastal management actions. Recently, the enabling of citizens to provide environmental observations has gained recognition as a way for enhancing the spatio-temporal coverage of satellite observations. In the FP7 funded EU project “Citclops” (Citizens’ observatory for coast and ocean optical monitoring), a smart phone app for the classification of water colour, simplified to 21 hues of the Forel Ule (FU) scale, is developed.

In this study we examine two bays in the Ebro Delta (NW Mediterranean) where satellite data, hyper- spectral measurements, and observations with the citizen tool for colour comparison were available. FU values and their corresponding novel colorimetric parameter, the hue colour angle, were derived in the bay at 12 stations with the traditional FU scale and one automated in-situ radiometric system at the Alfacs Bay aquaculture site. Both methods complied well during the study course of May–June 2011. These measurements were further compared to data from Full Resolution MERIS (Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) satellite images. The quality of the retrieved hue angle varies over the image. For high-quality sites, MERIS hue colour angles and FU values gave a good estimate of seasonal algal dynamics in the bays over the year 2011, while ground measurements revealed colour changes over short space- and time frames, which are indicative of the fast dynamics of phytoplankton in the area that could not be fully resolved with MERIS data.

The use of FU values and hue colour angle of water will allow a simple integration of data from hyperspectral measurements, MERIS multispectral observations and citizens observations with the (Cit- clops/EyeOnWater) water colour app. Such observational data can be included to local monitoring efforts, and can also foster an increased interest of the general public to local environmental management and governance issues.

Source: Citizens and satellites: Assessment of phytoplankton dynamics in a NW Mediterranean aquaculture zone

Building DIY citizen science technology to see invisible marine plastics | Society for Social Studies of Science

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Ninety-three percent of all marine plastics are smaller than a grain of rice (Eriksen et al 2014). This summer I made a research voyage through one of the world’s five gyres, huge slow-moving currents in the middle each of the world’s five oceans that tend to accumulate floating debris, including plastics. When our trawls pulled up startling amounts of plastic, signalling our arrival in the South Atlantic gyre and thus to an accumulation zone like the famous “garbage patch,” I leaned over the edge of the ship and took a photograph.

You simply cannot see the vast majority of marine plastics (Emmelhiez 2015). They are tiny. They are dispersed. If you have a body of water near where you live, work, play, or pray, chances are excellent that there are plastics in them. Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC), a citizen science NGO, has found tiny plastics in samples gathered from remote river headwaters in the far north, as well as waters in Maine, Alaska, Argentina, Thailand and Antarctica–everywhere their volunteers collect water (you can join as a volunteer here). I’ve collected water for ASC, and to my eyes, it was plastic free. Yet they found tiny microscopic plastics in the sample.

Citizen science is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists, including participatory monitoring. The research might be shared with professional or accredited scientists, like in ASC’s case, or it might stay at the citizen level and be used for education, local policy changes, curiosity, or a range of other outcomes. But if you have water nearby, how will you know if there are plastics in it given that they are so hard to see? How might you use citizen science to build your case to make local changes that might keep plastics from washing from land into your water ways?

My students and I have been working on the problem of making tiny, often invisible marine plastics visible through do-it-yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others (DIWO) technologies for monitoring marine plastics. Our efforts are part of Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research‘s (CLEAR) dedication to action-oriented research through grassroots environmental monitoring.

Source: Building DIY citizen science technology to see invisible marine plastics | Society for Social Studies of Science

Outraged Girl Scouts Send Letters Demanding Action on Flint Water Crisis

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Their young peers have been poisoned for months by the presence of toxic lead in the tap water. Now the members of a Brownie Girl Scouts troop from a nearby town have written letters to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, expressing their anger and concern over the situation and demanding that the water crisis in Flint be solved.

“I am so mad what happen in Flint,” wrote one of the girls from Brownie troop 71729. “They don’t have clean water to drink for almost two years. I hope you fix this problem.”

Pictures of the letters, and of the girls who wrote them, were shared on the blog of Flint Water Study, an independent research and citizen science organization working with people in the city. Flint Water Study’s all-volunteer research team hails from Virginia Tech and uses their “resources and expertise to help resolve scientific uncertainties associated with drinking water issues being reported” in Flint.

“These pictures are powerful visual forces representative of children who were harmed by a bad policy decision resulting in widespread lead poisoning across the city. These pictures are children concerned about other children and personify what we value as a people, as a nation,” Sid Roy of the Flint Water Study wrote in an email to TakePart.

Source: Outraged Girl Scouts Send Letters Demanding Action on Flint Water Crisis

Citizen Science for Water Resources Management: Toward Polycentric Monitoring and Governance?

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Abstract:

Novel and more affordable technologies are allowing new actors to engage increasingly in the monitoring of hydrological systems and the assessment of water resources. This trend may shift data collection from a small number of mostly formal institutions (e.g., statutory monitoring authorities, water companies) toward a much more dynamic, decentralized, and diverse network of data collectors (including citizens and other nonspecialists). Such a move toward a more diverse and polycentric type of monitoring may have important consequences for the generation of knowledge about water resources and the way that this knowledge is used to govern these resources.

An increasingly polycentric approach to monitoring and data collection will change inevitably the relation between monitoring and decision-making for water resources. On a technical level, it may lead to improve availability of, and access to, data. Furthermore, the opportunity for actors to design and implement monitoring may lead to data collection strategies that are tailored better to locally specific management questions. However, in a policy context the evolution may also shift balances of knowledge and power. For example, it will be easier to collect data and generate evidence to support specific agendas, or for nonspecialists to challenge existing agreements, laws, and statutory authorities.

We identify strong links with polycentric models of river basin management and governance. Polycentric models (Ostrom 2010) recognize the existence of multiple centers of decision-making within a catchment and provide a potential alternative to the top-down centralizing tendencies of integrated water resources management. Although polycentric systems are often associated with data scarcity, we argue that citizen science provides a framework for data collection in such systems and that it provides opportunities for knowledge generation, institutional capacity building and policy support, in particular in basins that are faced with multiple challenges, stressors, and resource scarcity.

Source: Citizen Science for Water Resources Management: Toward Polycentric Monitoring and Governance?

Grizz Tracker

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Grizz Tracker was developed in partnership with Peace Region’s Operations Division staff, Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) in collaboration with industrial stakeholders (Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd., Boucher Bro Lumber Ltd., Canfor, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Manning Diversified Forest Products) and the Miistakis Institute to enable industrial personal working in the Lower Peace Region to collect sightings information on grizzly bears. The collaborative efforts of all parties to mobilize this work is truly a success in itself!

This program formalized existing efforts by Industrial personal to report grizzly bear sightings to Peace Region AEP staff. Past reporting efforts have assisted AEP in better understanding grizzly bear presence and helped to inform the locations of hair snag monitoring sites, used to identify individual grizzly bears through genetic analysis of individual hair samples.

Grizz Tracker includes the development of a smartphone app and associated on-line mapping tool to increase efficiency, accuracy and ease of data collection, and ultimately generate a dataset to be used to inform grizzly bear management.

Source: Grizz Tracker

Is citizen science ethical?

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I was really surprised the first time someone asked — I think it was in a review of a proposal — about whether it was ethical to do citizen science. “Isn’t this exploitation?” was how the concern was phrased. Getting unpaid people to do what was previously paid work might seem problematic. As citizen science has grown, so too has thoughtful criticism of the practice.

The term ‘citizen science’ covers such a wide range of activities that I think it’s hard to address the ‘ethics of citizen science’ broadly. As citizen science is broad, so too are its ethics, covering everything from completely ethical to unethical.

Source: Is citizen science ethical?

When Does Leisure Become Work

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Abstract:

This article explores the tensions between game play and contributing to science within Foldit (http://fold.it/portal/), an online puzzle game and participatory science project in which participants fold proteins in novel ways. No prior scientific knowledge is required in order to play, but solutions developed by players have led to important scientific discoveries. Based on analysis of online exchanges and interviews with a number of players, we examine the tensions between the experience and pleasure of playing a game and the desire to work and contribute to scientific activity. We examine our players’ experiences in terms of Stebbins’ (1982, 2007) notion of serious leisure.

Source: When Does Leisure Become Work