This week, an article in the Charlotte Observer newspaper featured citizen scientist Benton Bragg and his family. The Braggs installed a video camera in an owl box to track the habits of the owl and her babies.
“We never know what we’re going to see,” Bragg said. “One night she brought in seven snakes. Another night it was salamander night. Once, she brought in what I think was one of my brother’s chickens.”
Bragg’s efforts are part of a University of North Carolina citizen science project to study differences between urban and rural owls. Citizen scientists, like Bragg, are sending key observations to researchers who then distill the data into findings. Turns out, for example, urban owls eat more birds and fewer amphibians than their rural counterparts.
The article goes on to demonstrate the growing interest in all-things-citizen science, including an effort to form a professional society for practitioners (note the shameless plug):
Some developers of citizen science projects, like [Rick] Bonney of the Cornell Lab, are pushing to create a professional society for citizen science developers centered on creating best practices and guidelines.
Darlene Cavalier, co-founder of ScienceForCitizens.net, an online clearinghouse for more than 125 citizen science projects, said creating a professional society is a good idea so long as it includes smaller grassroots projects unaffiliated with a university or research institution.
Cavalier said she’s been “preaching the gospel” of citizen science for the past five years. She thinks the prejudice against citizen scientists producing faulty data is crumbling.
“There are so many credible institutions involved in citizen science now,” Cavalier said. “When you see Yale, Cornell and NASA doing it, I think that most scientists now see it is legitimate.”
Scientists and allied professionals may need some time to sort out the parameters of the burgeoning field, but anyone interested in getting involved should find many local opportunities once they start looking.
