citizen science gotscience.org

Environmental Health Is a Social Justice Issue

June 27, 2019July 1, 2019 Science Connectedclean water, community health, waste management, water management

By Shayna Keyles (@shaynakeyles) When we talk about recycling, mitigating climate change, protecting habitats, and more, it’s not only for some abstract mission of “saving the earth,” though that would be good, too. These are environmental justice issues; they are part of the struggle for basic human rights. Environmental justice in the US In the United States, the environmental justice movement grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Communities of Black, Latinx, Native American, low-income, and immigrant groups found that they were disproportionately affected by…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Help Audubon Protect Threatened Birds

June 14, 2019June 14, 2019 Science Connectedbirding, citizen science, climate change, climate watch, threatened birds, threatened species

Audubon’s Climate Watch Program needs volunteers to help it spot 12 birds threatened by climate change. Are you in? “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul,” Emily Dickinson wrote. Is there hope for our feathered friends in the era of climate change? Yes, but they need our help. More than 300 North American birds will likely lose over 50 percent of their current geographical range by 2080, according to Audubon’s 2014 Birds and Climate Change Report. This means that the areas with the climate conditions these…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog Environment Health

Empowering Communities to Examine Lead Exposure with Crowd the Tap

May 17, 2019May 23, 2019 Science Connectedcommunity health, drinking water, lead pollution, water, water pollution

By Bradley Allf Lead pipes for transporting water have been a fixture of modern civilization for more than two thousand years. Ancient Romans channeled water into homes and bathhouses through lead piping. In fact, the Latin word for lead, plumbum, is where we get the English word “plumbing.” Yet we have also long recognized that lead can have a serious impact on our health. Vitrivius, who lived during the first century BCE, wrote at length about the physical harm caused by lead exposure, concluding that “water should therefore on no…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Sound Around Town Uses Data to Combat Noise Pollution

May 10, 2019May 12, 2019 Science Connectedcitizen science, health, noise pollution, pollution, public health, urban

By Bradley Allf At the start of World War I, thousands of soldiers were coming down with a baffling condition: they became blind, deaf, lost their memory, or developed uncontrollable shaking despite no obvious physical injury. Even stranger, this malady could be triggered by memories of the war even after the fighting had ended. At the time, doctors called what they were seeing “shell-shock,” though today we would call it by a different name: post-traumatic stress disorder. Anything that brought back memories of the trenches could precipitate this condition, but…

Animals Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog Ecology

Citizen Science in Nebraska is Bigger Than You Think

April 29, 2019April 26, 2019 Science Connectedbutterflies, citizen science, nebraska, salamanders, spotted skunks

by Megan Ray Nichols (@nicholsrmegan) In Nebraska, scientists working for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission are increasingly relying on casual researchers and citizen scientists to better understand three creatures in particular: spotted skunks, salamanders, and regal fritillary butterflies. Why? The populations of these species have either declined or are in jeopardy, and scientists want to get a current population count. Let’s take a closer look at these three Nebraskan citizen science projects and what researchers hope to learn from data collected by citizen scientists. Nebraska is a big state.…

Astronomy Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Slavery from Space: Citizen Science in the Antislavery Movement

April 12, 2019April 12, 2019 Science Connectedantislavery, citizen science, politics, satellite images, science and politics, science for justice, slavery from space, social justice

By Dr. Jessica Wardlaw Slavery from Space is a citizen science project that allows users to further the antislavery movement by mapping the locations of activities in which people are frequently found to be enslaved. How many slaves do you think there are in the world? You might be surprised. In 2016, the International Labour Organization estimated that 40.3 million people were enslaved globally, of which 28.7 million are women and girls and 24.9 million are in forced labor. To put those numbers into perspective, those sums are roughly equivalent…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Neighborhood Science with GLOBE Mission Mosquito

April 8, 2019April 6, 2019 Science Connectedcitizen science, mosquito, science education, science policy, technology

Spring is a great time to start using the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper. Have you noticed any mosquitoes yet? Spring is upon us in the United States, and mosquitoes are already buzzing in many parts of the country. Below is a map that shows the approximate onset of the mosquito session throughout the contiguous U.S. You can observe how the mosquito season works its way northward as conditions become suitable for them to hatch and breed. If you don’t see mosquitoes already, take a look to this map…

Blogs Book Reviews Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Book Review: Building a Foundation in Environmental Science

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019 Science Connectedbook reviews, citizen science, education, environmental science, science education

Dickinson, Janis L. & Bonney, Rick. (eds). Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research. Cornell University Press, 2012. 279 pages. Paperback $US 29.95. Though it was published in 2012, Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research is relevant to our present moment. As discussions of environmental research increase in frequency and urgency, institutions at all levels will continue to raise questions about the public’s scientific literacy and the best methods of mobilizing scientific knowledge. This text works through these questions, asserting that “citizen science has a crucial role to play”…

Astronomy Citizen Science

Citizen Scientists Help Solve “Aurora” Mystery

October 30, 2018October 24, 2018 Science Connectedaurora, NASA, steve

By Kasha Patel Notanee Bourassa knew that what he was seeing in the night sky was not normal. Bourassa, an IT technician in Regina, Canada, trekked outside of his home on July 25, 2016, around midnight with his two younger children to show them a beautiful moving light display in the sky — an aurora borealis. He often sky gazes until the early hours of the morning to photograph the aurora with his Nikon camera, but this was his first expedition with his children. When a thin purple ribbon of…

Citizen Science Promotes Environmental Engagement

Citizen Science Education

Citizen Science: An Important Tool for Researchers

September 13, 2018September 5, 2018 Science Connectedcitizen science, education, science

By Shayna Keyles (@shaynakeyles). If you have been following GotScience.org for a while, you have probably seen the term citizen science, but you may still be unfamiliar with what that means. Consider this article a bit of Citizen Science 101. Citizen science describes a collaborative scientific process in which non-scientists, or citizen scientists, collaborate with scientists, who are trained professionals, often with a postgraduate degree, employed in a scientific field. Citizen scientists may have received science education or have participated in research, but they are not employed as scientists. Citizen…