Category: Citizen Science

Citizen science projects are only as good as the people that contribute to them. For some projects, diversity is key — researchers need as many different people as possible to contribute. But for others, quantity is the name of the game, and just a handful of people can make a huge difference. These top contributors, […]

This post is based on the latest episode of our podcast, Citizen Science: Stories of Science We Can Do Together! In it, host Bob Hirshon chatted with four citizen scientists about how they got their start in the community and how they share citizen science with others. Listen to our podcast here: Citizen Science: Stories […]

Researchers can accomplish amazing things these days with satellites — they can study clouds and climate, forests and land use change and even bird migrations. But with so much satellite data, it can be hard to match up measurements from the sky above with information about what’s actually on the ground. That’s where citizen scientists […]

Does a dog ever think, in their own way, “That sure looks like a squirrel, but I could be mistaken?”  Throughout history, humans have thought that our ability to reflect on our own thinking — what scientists call metacognition — distinguishes us from other animals. But there’s growing evidence that’s not the case. Researchers have […]

Last summer, my friend Henry Gargan became obsessed with birds. Everywhere I went with him — on a walk in the park, downtown or even driving in the car — became a birding expedition. The bird on the signpost had to be scoped out. That eerie call — a wood thrush or a hermit thrush? […]

Anyone, anywhere, at any time can turn their curiosity about nature into real-world impact by volunteering online with citizen science. Caroline Nickerson, Miss Louisiana Earth, is hosting an online challenge with SciStarter, Cartoscope, Healthy Gulf and Northeastern University for the general public from August 1 – August 14 to volunteer online and map land loss. […]

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down in the spring of 2020, teachers, librarians, camp counsellors, park rangers and more found themselves scrambling to adapt. Although the virus drastically altered plans, the learning didn’t necessarily stop thanks to the tireless efforts of educators of all kinds.  In many cases, teachers and others found themselves […]

Through a community effort, the Girl Scouts of Southwest Indiana got ready to become citizen scientists at six different sessions in two locations in the council April 24 and 25, 2021.  More than 80 girls in grades K-10 and their leaders worked to sharpen their scientific observation skills through a series of games, demonstrations and […]

Wicked high tides, also known as king tides or astronomical high tides, are a natural phenomenon that occur several times a year in certain areas around the globe. In the Boston area, these events usually happen in March and October. This is when there is a full or new moon, and the Earth, Sun and […]

For nearly a thousand years, Jews at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo stored their worn-out, torn, or otherwise unusable manuscript fragments — everything from biblical texts to business ledgers, Talmudic commentaries to children’s writing exercises — in the geniza, or storage room. During the nineteenth century, the archive was excavated by British academics […]