Citizen Science

Citizen Science is scientific work undertaken by volunteers -- members of the general public, just like you.  Volunteers often work in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions. Citizen science allows everyone to contribute to science no matter where they are. Whether by asking questions, reporting observations, conducting experiments, collecting data, or developing low-cost technologies and open-source code, members of the public can use their talents to help advance scientific knowledge and contribute to a greater good.

With citizen science and crowdsourcing, we can help:

• Encourage and accelerate scientific research through group discovery.
• Provide information at resolutions that would otherwise be difficult to obtain given time and cost constraints.
• Improve the quality and relevance of observations due to the unique perspectives and local knowledge volunteers bring to projects.
• Increase science skills. Students can gain skills to excel in science, technology, engineering, and math. Gain hands-on experience doing real science beyond a classroom setting.
• Improve government services while lowering costs.
• Connect with public service and work for a greater good.

The Story of Citizen Science 

• Caren Cooper's simple (but not simplistic!) TEDx presentation of Citizen Science.   https://youtu.be/G7cQHSqfSzI  
• A citizen science tutorial that helps with skill-building activities to help learn the basics of citizen science.

https://y4y.ed.gov/learn/citizen-science/introduction/overview

• You for Youth Citizen Science Course         https://y4y.ed.gov/learn/citizen-science/introduction/overview

For more information, please check out: Citizen science: Go ahead, try this at home

• CitizenScience.gov                                                                         

  Helping federal agencies accelerate innovation through public participation. Citizenscience.gov is an official government website designed to accelerate the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science across the U.S. government.

• Citizen Science Association                                                                                        

  Home of the Citizen Science Association. CitizenScience.org aims to harness the knowledge gained by practitioners and researchers across the field of citizen science to build collaboration, community and credibility.

• SciStarter                                                                                          

  Science we can do together. SciStarter is the place to find, join, and contribute to science through more than 1600 formal and informal research projects and events. Our database of citizen science projects enables discovery, organization, and greater participation in citizen science.

• Society for Science                                                      

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Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research – whether community-driven research or global investigations. The Citizen Science Association unites expertise from educators, scientists, data managers, and others to power citizen science. Join us, and help speed innovation by sharing insights across disciplines.