Blog: Citizen Science Projects, People, and Perspectives
By Guest Contributor, Apr 12, 2017
Izaak Walton League Celebrates Citizen Science Month With Project To Document Streams Across America By Danielle Donkersloot, Izaak Walton League Clean Water Program Director Every American has the right to know whether the streams running through their backyards and neighborhood parks are safe. But there is an alarming lack of up-to-date information about water quality across … Read more ““Stream Selfies” Bridge Information Gap on Stream Health”
Categories: Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Mar 28, 2017
Who really benefits from citizen science? How can citizen science support STEM education? How do we bring citizen science to new audiences? How can we leverage new technologies to expand student participation in citizen science projects? These were some of the questions we set out to discuss at the Citizen Science Meet-up at SXSWedu. SXSWedu … Read more “Upbeat, collaborative, and focused: Educators at SXSWedu reflect on the value and future of citizen science in education.”
Categories: Citizen Science News, Education, Events, Guest Contributor, Science Education Standards
By Guest Contributor, Mar 15, 2017
By Lishka Arata, Conservation Educator at Point Blue Despite the current administration’s efforts to roll back the Clean Water Act and dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, interest and participation is growing in a new EPA- and stakeholder-led citizen science project that aims to inform clean water management. The Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative has been gathering steam … Read more “Collaborative Citizen Science for Clean Water Management”
Categories: Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Guest Contributor, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Feb 15, 2017
By: Marc J. Kuchner Eighty-seven years ago, this week, Clyde Tombaugh was poring over a pair of photographic plates, hoping to change the world. He was staring hard into an arcane device called a blink comparator, which allowed him to rapidly switch from viewing one image to the next. In those days before computers, that was … Read more “Pluto, Planet Nine and Other Backyard Worlds”
Categories: Astronomy & Space, Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Feb 09, 2017
By: Ayla Fudala If you’ve ever seen bees flying around at night, there’s a good chance they’re so-called “ZomBees”—honey bees whose brains are under the control of tiny fly larvae growing inside their bodies. Yes, you read that correctly.
Categories: Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Insects, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Jan 31, 2017
By Adam Reyer, Project Director for Global Fishing Watch Hundreds of millions of people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods, and almost 3 billion rely on it as a protein source. But countless threats — overfishing, destructive fishing practices, bycatch, dishonest catch reporting, habitat destruction — threaten our oceans and the people who depend … Read more “Help fight illegal fishing with Global Fishing Watch”
Categories: Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Jan 30, 2017
Guest blog post from Charles Ault, Superstition Area Land Trust (SALT) community. SALT Citizen Science program emerges in East Valley. Rhythms of Desert Citizen Science program examines the effects of El Niño on our climate. Four organizations dedicated to advancing scientific research, public policy, and community-based decision making, have come together to develop a program that harnesses the … Read more “Superstition Area Land Trust Community Science”
Categories: Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, libraries, Other
By Guest Contributor, Jan 26, 2017
By: Lishka Arata Many things distinguish penguins from rocks. There’s color difference (usually), behavior (penguins waddle, rocks don’t), social structure (rocks don’t have one) — the list goes on. But why might someone need to distinguish between rocks and penguins? It’s a skill central to a long-term project that relies on citizen scientists, working from … Read more “How to Tell a Rock from a Penguin: It’s Harder Than It Sounds”
Categories: Birds, Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Project Profile
By Guest Contributor, Dec 27, 2016
By: Elizabeth Kittrie, Senior Advisor for Data Science, National Institutes of Health In the spirit of open science – a movement to make data and other information from scientific research available to everyone — the National Institutes of Health invites you to cast your vote and help us decide which of the projects competing for … Read more “Help Shape New Directions in Open Science: Vote for your favorite Innovation!”
Categories: Citizen Science, Guest Contributor, Health, Other
By Guest Contributor, Nov 17, 2016
By Lea Shell Middle school students are presented with a bucket of what, at first glance, looks like dirt. They pull handfuls onto their lab bench and carefully begin to sift. “I found a shark tooth!” one student exclaims, prompting the other students to peer more intently at their own piles. Before long, they see … Read more “Why it’s OK to fail: empowering students to discover”
Categories: Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering), Citizen Science, Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering), EarthSchool, Education, Guest Contributor, Science Practices