This post originally appeared on PLOS blogs. This post was originally published on CitizenSci, a PLOS blog about the projects, people, and perspectives fueling new frontiers for citizen science. Hear ye, hear ye! This is an open call to artists, engineers, filmmakers, scientists, hobbyists, lobbyists, foodies, gamers, musicians, photogs, techies, adults, kids, dreamers, schemers, hackers, […]

Do you just “get” numbers? Or have they always left you a little baffled? Now you can test this observation and quantify your number sense. Number sense is our “gut knowledge” of numbers’ magnitude, their relationships, and even basic arithmetic. Number sense is thought to be innate, potently present as early as infancy. But while […]

What would it be like without stars at night? What is it we lose? Starry night skies have given us poetry, art, music and the wonder to explore. A bright night sky (aka “light pollution”) affects energy consumption, health and wildlife too. Spend a few minutes to help scientists by measuring the brightness of your […]

The year’s 12 most visited projects in the SciStarter Project Finder, a growing collection of more than 500 new and existing citizen science opportunities.

‘Tis the season for citizen science! (Then again, it’s always the season for citizen science.) This December, SciStarter wraps up 12 different citizen science projects especially for you.

See that partridge in a pear tree? Make sure you count it for Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, one of the largest and longest running citizen science projects in existence today. It’s a 112 year tradition, with upwards of 60,000 person-days of effort and more than 60 million birds counted each year. “Each of the citizen […]

Earlier today, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosted “E.O. Wilson’s Global Town Hall,” with biologist Edward Osborne Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard. In anticipation of this exciting event, the museum revamped its Citizen Science Center and added new features. “I am especially pleased that we now offer a SciStarter kiosk in […]

The hills are alive with the sound of citizen science (and music)! Calling all music enthusiasts–the Bodleian Libraries are enlisting the help of the public in order to improve access to their music collections. About sixty-four boxes filled with unbound, uncatalogued sheet music from the mid-Victorian period has been digitized for public access. Although this […]

This morning, Space Florida announced that a research proposal submitted by SciStarter, Science Cheerleader and UCDavis won a competition to fly innovative research projects on the International Space Station via Space X in December 2013. We are stoked. This research will compare growth rates of microbiomes collected on Earth (by YOU and your fellow citizen […]

Sure, we’ve had our fair share of national and international media coverage (Today Show, Discover, Nature, CBS, etc) but what really motivates us is feedback from teachers, researchers and citizen scientists. Here’s what we’ve heard from folks this week: From a teacher via Twitter: “@LindseyOwn: @SciStarter is a blast! My students are basing part of […]