Blog: Citizen Science Projects, People, and Perspectives
Discover Magazine’s September print edition featured an infographic called “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Cats.” Felines seem to lead elusive, mysterious lives. Fortunately, the citizen science project Cat Tracker allows you to track your cat beyond what we can directly observe. Cats are moody. In the blink of an eye, a cat can change … Read more “The Nine Simultaneous Lives of Cats: Cat Tracker”
Categories: Animals, Citizen Science
The World Water Monitoring Challenge results are out! Earlier this year, I found myself hanging over a concrete ledge by the Charles River. But not to worry – it was nothing dire. I was actually trying to collect a water sample for the World Water Monitoring Challenge. Talk about diving headfirst into citizen science. On … Read more “Just Add Water: World Water Monitoring Challenge 2013 Results”
Categories: Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering), Citizen Science, Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering), Ecology & Environment, Nature & Outdoors, Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information, Planning and carrying out investigations
This post is part of Exploring a Culture of Health, a citizen science series brought to you by Discover Magazine, SciStarter and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, serving as an ally to help Americans work together to build a national Culture of Health that enables everyone to lead healthier lives now and for generations to come. At first glance, … Read more “Exploring a Culture of Health: Creating a Roadmap to Community Health”
Categories: Citizen Science
Share jellyfish sightings, track stars during evening beach strolls, count fireflies, or report dragonfly swarms while you’re at the beach this summer. Or participate in dozens of other summertime citizen science projects and advance fields of research in the process! Why not do them all? Hey! If you’re involved in more than one project, we’d … Read more “Citizen Science is a Shore Thing!”
Categories: Animals, Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water
Editor’s Note: Flight MH17 was a horrible tragedy, with many lives lost, including HIV/AIDS researchers en route to a conference. In Caren Cooper’s latest Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop, she explains how citizen science assisted with AIDS research, and how AIDS activists were able to become participatory members of the medical and scientific process. Here, in full, … Read more “Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop: Patients Who Were Research Subjects and the Doctors Who Listened – the Citizen Science of HIV/AIDS Research”
Categories: Citizen Science, Health
Live in Los Angeles county? Photograph butterflies and moths, and help scientists study climate change. Interested in more moth and butterfly citizen science projects? We’ve got you covered! “Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one…” [2] In the heat of summer monsoons, butterflies accompany the paddling … Read more “Waiting for a butterfly to flutter by with the Los Angeles Butterfly Survey”
Categories: Biology, Citizen Science, Climate & Weather, Ecology & Environment, Insects, Nature & Outdoors
Count butterflies to find out about the state of nature. Interested in butterfly citizen science projects? We’ve got you covered! From next Saturday 19 July until Sunday 10 August 2014, the Big Butterfly Count will take place in the UK. This citizen science project is organized by Butterfly Conservation UK and can boast being the … Read more “UK’s Big Butterfly Count is on!”
Categories: Animals, Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Insects
With the help of the public, researchers from the University of Vienna, Austria, have found out that the Eurasian kestrel can be “seduced” by the city lights, but this decision comes at a cost, with lower reproductive success and a poorer diet. Urbanization is a global event that is invading natural habitats, inevitably leading to … Read more “Kestrels in the City”
Categories: Animals, Birds, Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Nature & Outdoors
This post is part of Exploring a Culture of Health, a citizen science series brought to you by Discover Magazine, SciStarter and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, serving as an ally to help Americans work together to build a national Culture of Health that enables everyone to lead healthier lives now and for generations to come. There is a … Read more “Exploring a Culture of Health: How Can We Visualize Health Data for Better Communication?”
Categories: Citizen Science, Health
Every week, Caren Cooper’s Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop delves into relevant citizen science topics. During a recent trip to Italy for a citizen science summer course, Caren discovered the challenges of communicating about citizen science. While the definition itself is open to interpretation, the word “citizen science” is also not a universally-known term. In the … Read more “Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop: Does citizen science get lost in translation?”
Categories: Citizen Science
