In 1902, an international trade deal was brokered between the U.S. and Canada. Frank Baker, superintendent of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., had been working on the deal for some time. In a letter from 1900 sent to several addresses in Ontario, Canada, Baker explains he is “very desirous of obtaining” a particular […]

Innovating and finding ways to stay connected to members has been a challenge for almost every organization during 2020. The Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida Council (GSSEF) were able to connect virtually through the Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey on SciStarter during the summer of 2020. This effort allowed the Council to safely reach […]

Sometimes the old methods truly are the best methods. When astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, it was the result of countless hours spent straining his eyes at a machine called a blink comparator. Using it, Tombaugh could flip rapidly back and forth between two images of the night sky taken at slightly different […]

The future of individualized medicine may depend on an army of one million volunteers. And scientists want you to get involved.  Researchers with the National Institutes of Health are recruiting citizen scientists to enlist in a study of unprecedented scope and depth. The program, called All of Us, promises to take personal data from a […]

In its 4.5 billion year history, our planet has experienced five mass extinctions. Many scientists believe we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction, and this one is on us. Humans are to blame. Planet at Risk The consequences of our actions too often go unseen. The impacts caused by driving a car […]

As part of continued programming with the Network of the National Library of Medicine and the All of Us Research Program, SciStarter hosted an event series in January, February and March to help you get started in one of three citizen science projects that advance real world research. How It Works This “Lend Citizen Science […]

Every year around Christmas time, tens of thousands of volunteer birdwatchers gather in familiar locations across the Western Hemisphere for a tradition that dates back more than a century. On select days between December 14 and January 5, volunteers with the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count take a census of every bird they see […]

Hot off the (virtual) press…the Library & Community Guide to Citizen Science! Libraries are quickly becoming hubs for citizen science. Your library may already be involved in citizen science programming. If so, bravo! For countless others, citizen science is still a bit of a mystery. We created this guide to help you navigate the rapidly […]

In today’s world, computers both big and small produce vast volumes of data in record time — millions of trillions of bytes worth. It’s so much information that researchers can’t properly analyze all the data produced, and the overload can also lead computers to make mistakes. That’s why researchers are increasingly turning to citizen scientists […]

Air quality impacts our health, our quality of life and even the length of our lives. Most people don’t think about what’s in the air they breathe — but perhaps they should. That’s the driving force behind the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative. The citizen science project wants to let people know what’s in their air. […]