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Science for All
Four adults in white labratory coats smile at the camera.
Much of the scientific research process involves collecting and analyzing data, sometimes on a very large scale. It can be a monumental task to gather information and organize it for meaningful analysis. Thankfully, ordinary people of all ages can volunteer as "citizen scientists." There are thousands of projects listed online, all needing volunteers. These activities range from "bioblitzes"—events in which volunteers seek and catalog different living species in a given area—to weather-watching, monitoring water quality, and more.
For most projects, volunteers are asked to make observations about the natural world around them. For example, thousands of North American birdwatchers participate in an annual bird count. Each December and January, teams of trained volunteers fan out within a fifteen-mile-wide circle to identify and count all the birds they find during a twenty-four-hour period. Their reports are used by scientists to monitor bird populations, track migration, and develop conservation plans.
Even government organizations like the National Park Service (NPS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) depend on volunteers to conduct research. NPS uses volunteers to count cacti in Arizona's Saguaro National Park. Others take backpacking trips to monitor marmots in Washington's Olympic National Park. NASA has enlisted volunteers to help map the terrain along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail using a specially designed mobile phone app. The mapping interacts with satellite imagery obtained from NASA.
Internet technologies and mobile apps have even made citizen science accessible from the comfort of one's home. For instance, bird lovers can use an app called eBird to identify and report birds that visit their backyards; they can even upload their bird photographs to an online database. This shared information helps scientists develop more exact estimates of bird populations. Similarly, amateur weather-watchers can sign up to report daily levels of rain and other precipitation from their backyard rain gauges to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS). This information helps meteorologists fine-tune weather forecasts and develop more accurate storm warnings, allowing people to better prepare for severe weather.
Citizen scientists who prefer to focus on their computer screens can volunteer to sort through online data. A project called Galaxy Zoo has posted more than one million online images of distant galaxies taken from high-powered telescopes, like the Hubble Space Telescope. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have logged on to the Galaxy Zoo website to help review, classify, and analyze these images. This scientific crowd-sourcing contributes to astronomers' knowledge, saving them time and helping them focus their studies on the most interesting areas of the universe.
Volunteer scientists are also needed for video-watching projects. For example, field researchers need people to review videos of wild animals recorded by trail cameras. Volunteers can watch footage taken at a national park in Mozambique to see how many elephants show up or review videos of bats in Arizona to report about their flying behavior.
Sometimes researchers even recruit online gamers. In the NASA project NeMO-Net, volunteers play a video game simulating actual ocean expeditions. In captaining their make-believe voyages, citizen scientists help classify and map the world's existing coral reefs, producing real-life results through virtual explorations. In another online game, GENIGMA, participants solve puzzles that help scientists map cancer genes, which could help doctors develop better cancer treatments.
Citizen scientists have helped advance scientific knowledge in many projects. In fact, in 2017 the U.S. Congress passed the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act, acknowledging the value of citizen scientists and encouraging researchers to continue to utilize them. In a world where scientific knowledge is increasingly necessary to solve complex problems, citizen scientists are a valuable global resource.
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