Excerpt: The tsunami had receded just days before. The cores of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s central east coast were molten wrecks. The deadly radiation once bottled inside their concrete containment domes — well, nobody knew exactly where it went. So a group of citizens decided to find out….
Excerpt: EVE Online players will help scientists look for other planets from the comfort of their computer desks later this year. The game’s developer, CCP Games, is teaming up with Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), the University of Reykjavik and the University of Geneva to crowdsource space exploration within EVE’s virtual universe. Players will hunt…
Abstract: New citizen science projects are emerging all the time as scientists, policy-makers, and non-governmental organisations see the value of conducting research in this way. Understanding what factors infuence people to take part in citizen science projects and why participants continue their involvement are important questions for the field. Here, we bring together key theories…
Excerpt: Nairobi, 18 January 2016: Kenya faces diverse sustainability challenges such as climate change, degraded ecosystems, poor health, waterborne diseases, and poor waste management. Unsuitable consumption patterns and limited environmental awareness are compounding the problem. There is, therefore, an increased need for capacity development, environmental awareness, and information exchange to foster a generation of environmentally…
Abstract: This brief article includes mention of several citizen science projects that will be part of the scientific studies carried out during the upcoming eclipse. – LFF – Excerpt: Prof. Hugh Hudson and Laura Peticolas of the Space Science Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, are heading a Megamovie project to use thousands of…
Excerpt: For the past seven years, citizen scientist volunteers with the Kaua’i chapter of the Surfrider Foundation Beach Watch Task Force have been testing the waters at 27 recreational sites along the Kaua’i coastline. This summer they achieved a victory when the Hawai’i Department of Health (HDOH) finally acknowledged the concerning levels of pollution in…
This story has all the elements: a citizen scientist, a mobile phone, and the frankly astonishing complexity of Earth’s ecosystems. Our citizen scientist protagonist, C R Naik, sets a model for how to infuse biodiversity monitoring with vigilant attention. This kind of attention blends multiple senses and sets aside assumptions, letting us dig deeper into…
Abstract: The impact of Crowdsourcing and citizen science activities on academia, businesses, governance and society has been enormous. This is more prevalent today with citizens and communities collaborating with organizations, businesses and authorities to contribute in a variety of manners, starting from mere data providers to being key stakeholders in various decision-making processes. The “Crowdsourcing…
Excerpt: Back in 2002, in his first year as a graduate student at Ohio State University, Joshua Pepper was sitting in his office one day when a professor walked by and asked what he was doing. Nothing much, Pepper said. Good, the professor replied. Then you’ll have time to work on my project. Pepper, an…
Excerpt: A new study published in the journal Biological Conservation reaffirms the key role of citizen science for biodiversity conservation, encouraging further contributions along these lines. “Currently citizens provide a large amount of biodiversity data which are useful in science, but this information has an even greater potential for evaluating biodiversity on a regional and…