Category: Citizen Science

Get those binoculars out: The Great Backyard Bird Count 2010 takes place this Friday through next Monday, February 12 to 15. In as little as 15 minutes a day, you can help scientists learn how climate, disease, and habitat changes are affecting bird populations. Plus, you’ll have fun checking out your backyard visitors. The bird […]

Things have been a little squirrely in the last several days, what with the hiccups and ugly error messages that greeted a few selected members. Sorry about that. But now our intrepid engineer, Daniel, has set things straight again. Scientists and organizers of citizen science projects, you can once more reliably share your programs with […]

New to bird watching? Professor Stuart Pimm talks us through the basics in this video. Many bird watchers share their observations with researchers in an effort to learn about and protect these  little critters that are so important to our ecology.  If you’re interested in getting involved in bird watching to help science, you’ll find […]

As long as you’re making observations, recording data, and learning all this cool stuff as a citizen scientist, why not brag about it with a Science for Citizens Web badge? To create your own badge that declares your areas of specialty, just go to MyPage (if you’re not already a member of Science for Citizens, […]

Just back from a visit to Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Lab. Fascinating developments taking place there, not the least of which includes a number of citizen science initiatives! First up: ChargeCar! This project, part of a series of community-based applied research activities coming out of CMU’s CommunityRobotics.org,  is asking you to share your daily commute […]

It had been more than 10 years since the two-star system known as U Scorpii had erupted into one of its unpredictable bursts of brightness. Then yesterday morning, two amateur astronomers in Florida observed this “recurrent nova” come to life. Barbara Harris spotted it first and Shawn Dvorak soon confirmed. They notified the American Association […]

Most of the time, you can freely choose your own citizen science project (see our Project Finder). But every now and then, a project crashes through the ceiling… and chooses you. That’s what happened to a couple of doctors about a week ago in Lorton, Virginia, when a meteor traveling faster than 200 miles an […]

The science blogging community gathered (in person) at the increasingly popular Science Online 2010 conference in Durham, N.C. this past weekend where I was invited to chat about Adult Science Literacy, Science in the Media, and Citizen Science. I had the chance to unveil this beta version of  Sci4cits to an enthusiastic reception from the […]