It’s hard to recall a time when has there been such doubt about the benefit of scientific methods and the evidence-based approaches that underpin scientists’ work. Guest contributor Louise Lief believes the remedy is greater civic engagement by members of the scientific community.

Planning to attend the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities annual meeting? SciStarter’s founder, Darlene Cavalier will be there to speak about “Citizen science and crowd-sourcing among other options for universities to move forward and find new ways to collectively address societal challenges.” 11/12 1:45–3:00 p.m. Delaware Suite The Knowledge Paradox: How Can Expertise Be […]

Editor’s Note: Today starts the beginning of Bat Week and there are many opportunities for citizen scientists to get involved. Below, we have reposted an article from 2015 on the popular online project Bat Detective. Want to support more bat projects? Check out SciStarter to find a list of fun possibilities. 

By Sharon Karasick Girl Scouts are encouraged to try all sorts of new things in their scouting experience, a commitment reflected in their new motto: ”When she’s a Girl Scout, she’s also a G.I.R.L. (Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-taker, Leader)™.  While many troops still embrace the traditional three c’s of crafts, camping, and cookies, Girl Scouts are […]

By: Dr. Libby Ellwood Each year, millions of people flock to natural history museums to see examples of plants, animals, gemstones and more from places around the world. But what those visitors don’t get to see are the countless additional specimens behind the scenes. These specimen collections, housed at museums, universities, and other institutions, are […]

Philadelphia, Penn. – (October 10, 2017) –SciStarter and Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) are teaming up to encourage girls to pursue citizen science activities and exploration with new programming in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Girl Scouts of the USA has launched a new “Think Like a Citizen Scientist” series developed specifically to […]

Tiffany Poon dives with sharks. In fact, it’s one the biggest highlights of her diving year. “As soon as the first one appears, usually in spring, I’ll be at La Jolla Cove spending as much time as possible with them,” Poon says. “Sometimes they’re shy and keep their distance, but often they’ll come by close […]

How can you protect an astronaut from getting a sunburn in space? The Royal Society of Chemistry in London has designed a collection of hands-on chemistry experiments that kids can do to explore this question and discover the answer for themselves. The project is called Mission: Starlight. It is free and includes downloadable videos, worksheets, and […]

Detecting emotional concepts, such as sarcasm, within a text is not an easy task for an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. For instance, consider the sentence below. Without the emoji present it’s not clear what the author was feeling. The author could have been sad because of a lack of a special someone in his life […]

Like many people, I was first introduced to the world of archaeology by Indiana Jones, that adventuresome character who lit up the big screen rescuing artifacts from villains by the skin of his teeth. Indy was awesome and will always have a place in my heart. But while he succeeded in making archaeology seem romantic, […]