Category: Guest Contributor

How one science educator used SciStarter to inform pre-service teachers how to use citizen science in the classroom and in curricula. See the Citizen Science App Matrix, which aligns citizen science projects found on SciStarter to teaching standards! This is my first attempt to enter the blogosphere, so please bear with me. As part of my […]

Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Environmental Behaviors Project seeks help in sorting and ranking environmental stewardship. Many citizen science projects have been very successful in collecting high-quality scientific data through the participation of citizen scientists. However, less emphasis has been placed on documenting changes to citizen scientists themselves. In particular, many projects hope participants will increase their environmental […]

The Genetics of Taste citizen science project from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science asks whether fat could be the sixth taste. Come to your senses! SciStarter has curated a list of citizen science projects for all five senses. Guest post by Michelle Murphy-Niedziela. Have you ever seen this image? Well, forget it because it’s […]

The Genetics of Taste citizen science project from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science set out to understand the link between genetics and TAS2R38 gene, responsible for the “bitter” taste receptor. Come to your senses! SciStarter has curated a list of citizen science projects for all five senses. Guest post by Michelle Murphy-Niedziela. Don’t like […]

This is a guest post by Anne Bowser, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland College of Library and Information Science, and a Research Assistant with the Commons Lab of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Citizen science allows anyone and everyone to experience the thrill of scientific discovery. Children, who love being […]

This is the first installment for a brand new series about citizen science in schools and classrooms. Teachers often hear the term citizen science, but it’s never really clear what it is and how it might integrate into their classrooms. Citizen science is methodical scientific research conducted in part (or sometimes entirely) by non-professional scientists. […]

When you consider the field of citizen science you probably think of it as something you do by collecting data, taking pictures, finding plants or animals, or uploading sightings. There’s a new form of citizen science emerging called a “thought experiment.” You may be familiar with thought experiments like that of “Schrödinger’s Cat” or Einstein’s […]

SciStarter has a whole round-up of tree-related projects for you this season. Branch out into citizen science! Walking around my neighborhood the other day, I was casually observing the local flora when I was struck by the redness of one particular set of leaves. While the tree pictured is not the exact one I spied […]

  It’s not always easy for citizen scientists to see what happens with the data they collect. Not all projects are published, and those that are may not be open access and often only include a summary of the findings. I work at F1000Research, and one of the key points of this open access journal […]

This post originally appeared on Your Wildlife and was reposted with the permission of the author, Holly Menninger. Over the last few weeks, we’ve watched and envied reports and photos coming from those of you living within the emergence zone of Brood II 17-year periodical cicadas (from Georgia to Connecticut). We even traveled westward to […]