Disrupting Science!(in a good way)

Humanity + Summit @ Harvard:Rise of the Citizen Scientist

Darlene CavalierScience For Citizens

http://scienceforcitizens.net

Common Misconception (among scientists)

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What is a

Citizen Scientist?

Who are Citizen Scientists?

•50 million+ worldwide•46% surveyed*, hold graduate degrees (national avg is 9.9%**)•Highly educated, affluent, active users of the Internet.*2009 Brownstein/Science Cheerleader survey of 150 active citizen scientists

**U.S. Department of Education, 2009-2010

Who are Citizen Scientists?

MOST CITIZEN SCIENTISTS ARE GEN JONERS: who have an “aching to act.”

Why volunteer for science?

1. To help safeguard or improve the environment.

2. To learn more about a subject I’m interested in.

3. To generally expand my knowledge, broaden my mind.

4. To help improve my community.

5. To help advance science.

Citizen scientists don’t do scientific research for a living; they practice science for personal satisfaction.

Online data analysis citizen scientists

Demographics: avg age 43 yrs old; 80/20 men/women; 28% hold Masters degree+; 29% hold Bachelors

#1 reason these 250,000+ people volunteer to sort through images of galaxies?

“To contribute to research.”Source: Jordan Raddick (JHU), Galaxy Zoo survey: “Why do people

become citizen scientists?”

Why now?

Internet makes it easy to obtain and share information

Instrumentation is cheaper, more accessible

Mobile smart phones: GPS, digital photography, microscopes, sensors

Open data

Impact?Peer reviewed papers

Discoveries:

Amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley, discovered a hole in Jupiter’s atmosphere, the size of the Earth!

At least three citizen scientists played key roles in what has become known as Climategate.

Six-year-old Alyson Yates and her mom, Kate, discovered a rare nine-spotted ladybug

while taking part in Cornell University’s Lost Ladybug citizen science project. By running DNA tests, teenagers in NYC found a new breed of cockroach and

discovered food labels lie.

Impact?White House

Increasing number of published papers

Field of academic study

Policy: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology

Public Understanding of Science

Buzz

The NY Academy of Sciences: The Growth of Citizen ScienceThe New York Times: A New Kind of Big ScienceO’Reilly Report: Citizen Science and Urban SensingTreeHugger: The Big Deal with Citizen ScienceEducation.com: Citizen Science benefits to childrenSeed Magazine: Creating Citizen ScientistsCNN Citizen Science and Climate Change

And many more.

What we do

We enable regular folks to tap their inner scientists and improve the world.

The problem

Millions of people eager to explore science and nature can’t find the thousands of research activities they could be participating in.

Our solution: the Project FinderFireflies, oil spills, the moon, your local river…Yup, our database has a project for that.

Harnessing the power of America’s greatest resource, to improve our world.