Category: CitSci Research

As the interviewer and the author of this post, I’ll reveal my bias now: meeting Michelle Neil, the secretary and social media moderator of the Australian Citizen Science Association, was a highlight of the Citizen Science Association’s conference for me. I’m an unabashed Michelle fan. She sat down with me this past March in Raleigh […]

Wynn, James. Citizen Science in the Digital Age: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement. The University of Alabama Press, 2017. 224 pages. Paperback $US 24.95. Citizen scientists have repeatedly faced resistance from skeptics questioning their experience, training, and ability, but recent technological advances have brought citizen science into the digital age, transforming many aspects of the […]

Since 2000, I’ve been an avid scuba diver in Southern California. When the Yukon, a 366 ft. long Canadian warship, sunk off the coast of San Diego in July of 2000, it became an artificial reef for divers to explore, piquing my interest in and igniting a lifelong passion for diving. In late 2006, my […]

Sara Futch, a graduate student at North Carolina State University, won Best Overall Poster at the Citizen Science Association Conference 2019 for her poster, “Uncovering Connections across Citizen Science Projects: A Social Network Analysis.” Conference attendees selected Sara’s poster via in-person votes during the poster session. Here’s more from Sara about her research: “My name […]

At the start of World War I, thousands of soldiers were coming down with a baffling condition: they became blind, deaf, lost their memory, or developed uncontrollable shaking despite no obvious physical injury. Even stranger, this malady could be triggered by memories of the war even after the fighting had ended. At the time, doctors […]

Dickinson, Janis L. & Bonney, Rick. (eds). Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research. Cornell University Press, 2012. 279 pages. Paperback $US 29.95. Though it was published in 2012, Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research is relevant to our present moment. As discussions of environmental research increase in frequency and urgency, institutions at all levels will […]

A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) analyzes the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a hands-on citizen science project, in the context of a meta-analysis of 54 other projects to “quantitatively explore” citizen science data. The article’s findings suggest that “hands-on citizen […]

The genetic modification of crops (GMOs) and the concept of designer babies (thanks to CRISPR technology) may be two of the most recognizable, yet controversial, topics related to the field of genetic engineering. At its core, genetic engineering, also known as bioengineering, is the genetic modification of an organism. Some view genetic engineering as an […]

This post is part three of a three-part series about how Curio can help citizens recognize, appreciate, and care for the highly beneficial green spaces around them. Special thanks to Megan Ray Nichols for putting all this together. Portions of this interview appeared in part one of this series. Part One | Part Two | Part Three What are […]

This post is part two of a three-part series about how Curio can help citizens recognize, appreciate, and care for the highly beneficial green spaces around them. Part One | Part Two | Part Three When I was 8 years old, a friend of mine fell from the very top of an extremely tall cypress […]