Media Toolkit
Purpose
This social media toolkit is designed to empower individuals, organizations, and communities to spread awareness and inspire participation in citizen science. By providing ready-to-use graphics, sample posts, hashtags, and engagement strategies, this toolkit makes it easy to share the excitement of contributing to real scientific research.
Our goal is to showcase the collective impact of public participation in science, encourage diverse audiences to take action, and help reach one million meaningful contributions during Citizen Science Month.
Whether you’re a project scientist, a facilitator or educator, a federal agency, an organization, or an enthusiastic citizen scientist, your voice can help mobilize a movement—because every act of science counts! Use this toolkit to spark conversations, mobilize participants, and celebrate the power of citizen science.
Quick Links
Fast Facts
What are Acts of Science?
Acts of Science are real, measurable contributions to ongoing scientific research—open to anyone, anywhere. It’s more than just an activity—it’s a movement to showcase the collective power of people contributing to scientific discovery. In 2026, we are aiming to surpass 2.50 Million Acts of Science. From sharing photos of nature to help communities, planners, and scientists document biodiversity, to browsing images on your computer to help speed up research about Alzheimer’s disease, to using your phone to help track microplastics and air quality, each of these Acts of Science is important.
What is special about April?
SciStarter connects people to projects year-round, but during Citizen Science Month each April, SciStarter and our partners rally individuals, educators, organizations, and communities to take action by engaging in meaningful scientific activities. These Acts of Science, whether they involve collecting data, analyzing images, or attending events, highlight how small contributions add up to major scientific advancements. By contributing millions of Acts of Science, we demonstrate the incredible impact of public participation in research and inspire even more people to get involved. Every act counts—so why not make yours part of the movement?
Why 2.5 Million Acts of Science?
2026 is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the USA. In honor of this landmark year, we are aiming to surpass 2.50 Million Acts of Science. All Acts of Science done in the United States and tallied by SciStarter will count towards America Gives the largest volunteer effort in American history. SciStarter is an official partner of America Gives.
How You Can Help
Spread the word to your communities:
- Publish our press release with your local news outlets [coming soon!].
- Print and display posters and signs, or share our postcard and flyer designs, to communicate how people can participate and make an impact [Updated designs coming soon!].
- Use our project leader email template to inform your volunteers about your Citizen Science Month participation, keeping them engaged and inspired to take action.
Amplify our messages on social media:
- Share our Citizen Science Month promo post (Find it here on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X) from your accounts!
- Follow @SciStarter on Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and TikTok (@SciStarter.org) and share our content; be sure to use the #ActsofScience hashtag!
- Consider following our Citizen Science Month Organizing Partners:
Inspire and engage your networks on social media:
- Add the #ActsofScience hashtag to all your social media posts, and engage with us via your personal or organizational accounts.
- Announce your support and partnership with our custom partner graphic template on Canva [Square] or [IG Story 4:5].
- Use our suggestions for social media captions or develop your own customized posts to share out the content [Jump to captions].
- Capture photos at your events showcasing citizen science in action to help others visualize participation and get inspired to join. Be sure to use #ActsofScience and tag us @SciStarter!
- For Instagram: adding partners (like @SciStarter) as “collaborators” tends to consistently amplify engagement. When you send a “collaborator request” to another user, and they accept it, the post or reel will appear on both your profile and theirs. Adding collaborators is done during the post creation process. Find out how.
- Use our Giphy stickers on Instagram posts: 1) Create the story or reel you want to post, 2) Select the “stickers” icon located on the top menu, 3) Type “SciStarter” into the search bar and select from one of the available CitSciMonth Stickers.
Always include #ActsofScience
Use additional existing hashtags about related topics to support more visibility: #CitizenScienceMonth, #CitizenScience, #CivicScience, #ParticipatoryScience, #CommunityScience #STEM, #scienceiscool, #scienceprojects, #astronomy, #space, #scicomm, #research, #libraries, and hashtags related to your topic/project or institution.
Suggested Graphics for Posts and Printing
We offer a variety of free graphics to help you promote Citizen Science Month and the goal of 2.50 Million Acts of Science!
- Browse our SmugMug gallery for images of citizen science in action, often with Library Citizen Science Kits.
- We have a custom partner graphic template on Canva [Square] [IG Story 4:5] to help organizations announce their participation. Use these visuals to bring your posts to life and inspire more people to participate!
- Print Postcards to spread the word, use the Canva Template or download here.
[More Graphics Coming Soon]
Suggested Social Media Captions
Note: the below example posts are based on Citizen Science Month 2024 and 2025, when we were aiming for One Million Acts of Science. In April 2026, we are aiming for 2.50 Million Acts of Science!
Sample text for recruiting volunteers:
We’ve partnered with @SciStarter and hundreds of other #CitizenScience projects to encourage our volunteers to join a global effort to log 2.5 Million #ActsofScience this April! Don’t miss out! Learn about [project name] and how you can impact [scientific research aim]! Learn more at citizensciencemonth.org [or insert your project link]
Join us in the global effort to collect 2.5 Million #ActsofScience during the month of April. Learn how and celebrate with us at ActsofScience.org
Join us to be part of 2.5 Million #ActsofScience during April. You can [describe task] to help us [describe objective]. Sign up: [project link].
Join us and @SciStarter this #CitSciMonth in 2.5 Million #ActsofScience
Who: Thousands of people
What: 2,500,000 Acts of Science in 1 month
Where: Anywhere in the world!
When: April 2024
Why: Support researchers in gathering and analyzing data to make a difference
Learn more at citizensciencemonth.org [or insert your organization link]
Sample text for promoting programs or goals:
[Insert Institution] is presenting a FREE event open to anyone interested in learning how to turn curiosity into action through the global effort to collect 2.5 Million #ActsofScience. Join us to explore [insert theme or focus of event]. Learn more at [event link].
Join [insert institution or “us”] on [date] as we rally to hit our community goal of [choose a #] [“classifications” or “analyses”, etc] towards [project] as part of 2.5 Million #ActsofScience with our partner @SciStarter. [End with instructions to join]
Join [project] on [date] as we rally to hit our goal of [#][classifications/analyses/contributions/etc] towards [topic/research goal] as part of 2.5 Million #ActsofScience with our partner @SciStarter. Get started at [name and link to your project].
We’re aiming for [# Acts of Science or some other motivator] this April as part the 2.5 Million #ActsofScience challenge this #CitizenScienceMonth! Join us [on a date, other brief instruction] to [“meet the team,” “make an impact,” etc]. Start here: [link to project or event]”
Sample text for celebrating April participation:
Amazing! [institution] and friends added [#] Acts of Science by [describe activity] as part of 2.5 Million #ActsofScience! There’s still time to do more: https://citizensciencemonth.org [or organization page link]
Our community of participants in [Name of project] added [total #] of Acts of Science to the collective goal of 2.5 Million #ActsofScience this month! Well done, team! There’s still time to get involved at citizensciencemonth.org
Citizen Science Month and Acts of Science Logos
Use our logo in all promotional materials from social media posts to print media to webpages. (Click, hold-down or right-click on the images below to save to your desktop or smartphone.)
Acts of Science: Connected Promotional Resources
- Visit our Google Folder with all posters here.
Questions? Please contact Emma@SciStarter.org