Content from Media – 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...

Teacher Uses NASA Data to Get Students Doing Citizen Science

Brandon Rodriguez — Tue, 01 May 2018 18:00:56 +0000

Excerpt: In the Education Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we’re always working to bring exciting scientific content to K-12 classrooms. Educators can access many of these free resources, classroom materials and activities online, and we’re adding more all the time. The inspiration for these products often comes from the work being done at JPL...

Frustrated pedestrians use citizen science to put ‘beg buttons’ back up for debate

Elise Stolte — Tue, 01 May 2018 18:00:53 +0000

Excerpt: Darcy Reynard hates “beg buttons” so much, he created an online map and recruited Twitter users to use a stop-watch on pedestrian crossing signals across the city. The map was soon reporting waits of more than three minutes as pedestrians or cyclists shivered in the cold, missed their bus or gave up and jaywalked....

Editor’s Choice: Is ‘grassroots’ citizen science a front for big business?

Philip Mirowski — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:55 +0000

Editor’s Choice: This is a rather provocative essay whose arguments are completely specious in many instances, and completely wrong in others, but has enough seeds of truth that it is worth pondering and acknowledging, and then considering much-needed rebuttals. –LFF– Excerpt: The very label ‘citizen science’ (as opposed to, say, ‘amateur’ or ‘extramural’) carries the unsubtle...

Why saving our blue planet may lie in the hands of citizen scientists

Richard K.F. Unsworth, Benjamin L. Jones, Leanne Cullen-Unsworth — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:36 +0000

Excerpt: Some 95% of the ocean is completely unexplored, unseen by human eyes. That naturally means that there are many marine environments that we don’t know much about, but that we’re still putting at risk from damaging activities such as bottom trawling. Meadows of seagrass – flowering plants that live in shallow, sheltered areas –...

Citizen scientists at Elkhorn Slough aid in sea otter research

Jennifer Leman — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:26 +0000

Excerpt: Sleepy sea otters piling onto pads of pickleweed in Elkhorn Slough are causing quite a stir. A partnership between local researchers and dedicated citizen scientists is researching Elkhorn Slough’s rebounding sea otter populations and the strange behavior that might have brought them there. The results of this years-long study, published in the journal Ecology,...

Citizen scientists bolster sea level research on King Tide

Florida International University — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:20 +0000

Excerpt: FIU deployed more than 100 citizen scientists to investigate whether flooding from the most recent King Tide in October was bringing saltwater or freshwater inland to urban areas. The findings could provide critical clues as to why such unusual flooding is occurring in South Florida, what areas are most at-risk and whether the frequency...

Citizen scientists may help save ancient Maine shell heaps

Abigail Curtis — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:14 +0000

Excerpt: Along the jagged coast of Maine, prehistoric shell middens mark spots where Maine Indians feasted on clams, shells and other seafood, then tossed aside the remains. “Midden,” to archaeologists, means the waste left behind by long-gone humans. In practice, though, these ancient garbage heaps contain a treasure trove of data that can shed light...

Editor’s Choice: Once Teased For Her Love Of Bugs, 8-Yr Old Co-Authors Scientific Paper

Camila Domonoske and Merrit Kennedy — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:52 +0000

Editor’s Choice: A warm & fuzzy story about creepy crawlies. Though slightly tangential to citizen science, this story illustrates a key ingredient to successful science outreach: scientists seeing a little bit of themselves in their audience. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Morgan Jackson and Sophia Spencer interviewed on NPR, via the...

Editor’s Choice: Benefits and challenges of incorporating citizen science into university education

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:51 +0000

Editor’s Choice: Getting meta with the data. This study examines learning as well as pre- and post- attitudes of college biology students who participate in, what I’d term “deep” inquiry-based learning. The college students were not only assigned to analyze a species’ potential response to climate change using citizen science phenology data, but also to...