For most people, a citizen science project provides a way to address a specific scientific challenge with the help of volunteers. For a group of researchers from MIT, UCSD, Masdar Institute, and University of Southampton, it is also an opportunity to study what motivates people to join the project. Would you rather receive a badge, […]

How cool! Imagine if 1,000 people took a photo of the same landmark in a park, let’s say, over a set period of time. We’d realize what’s in that part of the park all the time and what’s there temporarily. Changes in nature (phenological changes, in particular) and other activities would be recorded and trended […]

If you live in or near Philadelphia, here’s a recent piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sandy Bauer, on wildlife citizen science projects for you! We especially like this excerpt: And if you REALLY want to get involved, check out SciStarter, which is considered to be the largest aggregator of citizen science and crowdsourced projects. You […]

A Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) will be held in Portland, Oregon on August 4th and 5th, 2012.

On the morning of Friday, February 17, I will wake up before work, pour myself a cup of coffee, and stare out my window for 15 minutes. As long as I submit my observations to the Great Backyard Bird Count, my 15 minutes of zone-out time before I jump in the shower will qualify as […]

Excuse the shameless self-promotion but we couldn’t resist sharing this Tweet about SciStarter. like Kickstarter but for citizen science: SciStarter! scistarter.com simple, brilliant. — John Pavlus (@johnpavlus) February 8, 2012

Some of you expressed interest in viewing the slides I shared during a talk at the Microbe.net workshop at UC Davis. The talk was designed to give an overview of citizen science projects and a peek at the opportunities and challenges ahead for people involved in the production of such projects. It also pointed towards […]

Citizen scientists around the world finally have their own anthem! Monty Harper, an Oklahama-based educator and entertainer, has released his latest song, “Citizen Scientist,” featuring SciStarter! We’ve adopted this as our theme song. Harper drew inspiration from the research of Dr. Janette Steets, a botanist at Oklahoma State University. And the best part is that […]

Most of us are aware of the bacteria on the surfaces we come in contact with. The doorknob for the bathroom, coins and paper currency in our pockets, handrails in subway cars, computer keyboards and mice at the library… the list of built environments on which microbes thrive is nearly endless. In our preoccupation with […]

MyHeartMap Challenge aims to crowdsource the first-of-its-kind map of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in Philadelphia by photographing AEDs.