Covering the people, projects and phenomena of citizen science
Blog: Citizen Science Projects, People, and Perspectives
Charlotte Observer: “Citizen Science is in full flight.”
By Darlene Cavalier, Apr 01, 2010
This week, an article in the Charlotte Observer newspaper featured citizen scientist Benton Bragg and his family. The Braggs installed a video camera in an owl box to track the habits of the owl and her babies.
“We never know what we’re going to see,” Bragg said. “One night she brought in seven snakes. Another night it was salamander night. Once, she brought in what I think was one of my brother’s chickens.”
Bragg’s efforts are part of a University of North Carolina citizen science project to study differences between urban and rural owls. Citizen scientists, like Bragg, are sending key observations to researchers who then distill the data into findings. Turns out, for example, urban owls eat more birds and fewer amphibians than their rural counterparts.
The article goes on to demonstrate the growing interest in all-things-citizen science, including an effort to form a professional society for practitioners (note the shameless plug):
Some developers of citizen science projects, like [Rick] Bonney of the Cornell Lab, are pushing to create a professional society for citizen science developers centered on creating best practices and guidelines.
Darlene Cavalier, co-founder of ScienceForCitizens.net, an online clearinghouse for more than 125 citizen science projects, said creating a professional society is a good idea so long as it includes smaller grassroots projects unaffiliated with a university or research institution.
Cavalier said she’s been “preaching the gospel” of citizen science for the past five years. She thinks the prejudice against citizen scientists producing faulty data is crumbling.
“There are so many credible institutions involved in citizen science now,” Cavalier said. “When you see Yale, Cornell and NASA doing it, I think that most scientists now see it is legitimate.”
Scientists and allied professionals may need some time to sort out the parameters of the burgeoning field, but anyone interested in getting involved should find many local opportunities once they start looking.
Darlene Cavalier is a professor of practice at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society and a Senior Global Futures Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at ASU. Professor Cavalier is the founder of SciStarter (a popular citizen science portal and research platform connecting millions of people to real science they can do), founder of Science Cheerleaders (a non profit organization comprised of current and former NFL, NBA and college cheerleaders pursuing STEM careers), cofounder of ECAST: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology and cofounder of ScienceNearMe.org. She is a founding board member of the Citizen Science Association, an advisor and Fellow at National Geographic, a member of the EPA's National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology, appointed to the National Academy of Sciences "Designing Citizen Science to Support Science Learning" committee and named cochair of America 250's Innovation, Science, and Entrepreneurism Advisory Council. She is the co-editor of "The Rightful Place of Science: Citizen Science," author of "The Science of Cheerleading," and co-author of the Field Guide to Citizen Science (Timber Press). Recently, ASU President Michael Crow awarded Cavalier and her team the prestigious Medal for Social Embeddedness.
