WHAT IS CITIZEN SCIENCE?

FLAVOR 1: Perform a task with already collected data(example: Planet Hunters)

FLAVOR 2: Citizen Naturalist Approaches (e.g. citizen’s collect data from the environment for use in science)

Naturalist citizen science approaches are not new

Some Naturalist Citizen Science Endeavors Have Explicit Sampling Methods and Protocols

Volunteer networks for camera trapping along Appalachian Trail

These data can be used for occupancy studies

iNaturalist – cit.sci. at scale using mobile devices

AmphibiaWeb – focus on aggregation of new data/knowledge

Project Budburst - Phenology of flowering/leafing

Back to Flavor 2– Don’t take the images, help process them

Notes from

Nature P.2 – A work-

flow

OLD WEATHER TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT - CLIMATE LOG DATAMECHANICAL TURK:1) Date: 15 chars 2) Positional information: 10 chars (lat/long) 3) Weather: 120 chars (20 * 6

observations). 2) Total Cost: 145 * 0.015 = $2.175/record * 2 for double keying = $4.353) 350,000 logs pages * $4.35 = 1.5 million

TOTAL COST OF CIT. SCI OLD WEATHER: $120,000 funding total

OLD WEATHER – TRANSCRIBING SHIP’S LOGS FROM WW1 to recreate climate in the past

Field Notes: • A mix of structured and unstructured content• Contains essential information not in specimen records• Content unique to field notebooks and nowhere else• Field notes enables new research (e.g. Grinnell Resurvey)• Citizen science approaches for extracting data from fieldnotes

Citizen Science

Annotation of Field

Notebooks

SERENGETI LIVE: Identify photos of animals from camera traps

Group similar whale sounds together

CITIZEN SCIENCE WORKS AT SCALE(understanding biodiversity change may well require such massive effort)

CITIZEN SCIENCE HAS INTANGIBLE BENEFITS(Engagement in science process, value of collective effort, volunteerism for things that matter)