Citizen Science

“Citizen science” is an expression that was created to describe experiments or other scientific work that are being conducted by people without formalized scientific training. The impact of citizen science can be quite large, especially when networks combine the work of a network of volunteers, as this work allows professional scientists to get more done. For instance, more data can be collected, or more repetitions of a part of the experiment can be conducted.

Citizen science is also used as a tool for outreach, as it allows people to feel more connected to ongoing research. Thus, certain citizen scientists are both a target audience as well as participants in the scientific work. A very common group of participants is students in either primary or secondary school. However, the field of citizen scientists is not related to children. In fact, a large percentage of the most long-standing citizen science projects accept contributions from adults.

Citizen Science Programs

The oldest program of citizen science is the Audubon Society’s Christmas bird count, which has been around for over one hundred and ten years. This project requires citizens to count birds pursuant to certain procedures each winter, creating a bird census used by scientific researchers. The project has grown from the United States to include Canada, Mexico and even Colombia.

Other examples of citizen science programs deal with areas of science such as astronomy and archaeology. For instance, NASA has two programs that allow people to assist in collecting data about space. One project involves examining magnified images of a silica-based aero gel that NASA exposed to interstellar dust and examining the images for evidence of impact from dust. The second project allows volunteers to contribute to a database that collects information about the topology of Mars, such as craters and their depth. On the archaeological front, National Geographic has an interactive website that allows visitors to view satellite images of certain regions and tag areas that may make suitable sites for archaeological exploration.

Scientists studying climate change have also harnessed the power of citizen science. These experiments involve phenology, which is a study of nature cycles. By collecting data about plant and animal life in different regions of the world, scientists are better able to assess climate change and its effects.

Technology has played a part in citizens’ ability to contribute to science via crowdsourcing. One area that has benefited greatly is distributed computing, which is a process by which universities and other organizations use the internet to access the computers of volunteers when those computers are not in use. This allows the computing power and memory of each computer to be harnessed, creating a virtual supercomputer. While distributed computing involves less active involvement from volunteers, it nonetheless counts as citizen science.