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Citizen Science Programming Best Practices from the Association of Nature Center Administrators

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A thorough guide created by past directors at the Great Smokey Mountains Institute at Tremont and published by the Association of Nature Center Administrators is a wonderful resource for program leaders around the world who are interested in developing new and improving existing citizen science projects.

In addition, this guide will prove to be useful for the individual amateur researcher to help organize personal projects and stimulate ideas for getting involved within the community and even within ones own backyard.

A partial version is available for download below (16 pages of 88), and the complete document may be purchased for $20 directly from the ANCA.

“The Director’s Guide to Best Practices in Citizen Science” :: Copyright 2007 :: [ DOWNLOAD ]

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Environmental Scientists use Citizen Science to Monitor Wildlife Road Crossings

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Scientists from the University of Montana and the University of Calgary reported in 2007 on their use of local citizens to monitor and record observations of wildlife crossings of Highway 3 in southwestern Alberta, Canada. The data is being used to better understand wildlife movement in the area and how a planned highway improvement project might impact the environment.

This is a wonderfully useful approach for data collection in order to provide a potentially more broader look at a long-term natural pattern. What is particularly interesting about this report, however, is that is does address what will ultimately be the most critical issue for citizen science programs to overcome: how to guarantee that data collected from unregulated and potentially biased and subjective observers can be filtered into a set of data that can be considered scientific.

Citizen science data may never be considered as “real science” unless biases and unintentional errors can be monitored or filtered out. As long as the data collection sets are sufficiently large, then statistical analysis against a known, accurate sub-set of data can be used. Of course, once statistics is brought into the picture, then some generalizations are typically required, which can lessen the viability of the data.

I do believe that this is “legitimacy issue” is fundamental, and must be addressed by program leaders in the crowdsourcing citizen science projects.

“Evaluation of a Citizen-Science Highway Wildlife Monitoring Program” :: In Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation :: May 20, 2007 :: [ READ ABSTRACT ]

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A Celestial Halloween Frightful Sight

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So, it might be less frightful and more magical, but the planets will be aligned this Halloween night for a great show for all of the trick-or-treaters and their parents. Be sure to look up toward the sunset this Friday evening — in between doorbell rings and candy looting — to witness a fantastic early evening alignment of the crescent moon, Venus, and Jupiter.



More great Moon-planet alignments will be visible over the next month, and you can read more about these great observing and photographing opportunities with the article below…

“Halloween Sky Show” :: Science@NASA :: October 28, 2008 :: [ READ ]

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Amateurs Watch the Perseids on the Moon

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In late July, we reminded you to “look up” in early August to enjoy the annual Perseid meteor shower (read). Hopefully, many of you had an enjoyable and awe-inspiring experience (this author went out and saw one flash in the corner of his eye, but had to get back into bed for an upcoming long day). This year, a few amateur astronomers took their ‘looking up” a step further beyond Earth’s upper atmosphere, and focused their telescopes onto the surface of the Moon. Amazing bright flashes of meteor explosions on the surface of the Moon were seen using typical backyard telescopes!

This specific form of moon-gazing is actually quite important right now, as NASA has a program established to monitor meteor activity on the surface of the Moon. This effort is to better understand the safety requirements for the next generation of astronauts who will hopefully set up camp for a while.

The Lunar Impact Monitoring program at the Marshall Space Flight Center trains its telescopes toward the Moon as frequently as possible, but Moon phases and atmospheric conditions will often limit their coverage. In fact, they were unable to monitor the Moon during the Perseids. So, developing a world-wide team of amateur astronomers will greatly enhance the programs ability to accurately predict and monitor meteor activity, which will lead to better considerations for activity recommendations for lunar landings and extended camps.

DPRI already features this important citizen science project in our collection of Amateur Science Opportunities, and we will plan to write a more thorough review of the program in the near future.
“Amateur Astronomers See Perseids Hit the Moon” :: Science@NASA News :: September 2, 2008 :: [ READ ]

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Intel Proposes Citizen Science Mobile Computing Program

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A research collaboration from Intel Research Berkeley is currently beta testing mounted air quality sensors on the Street Sweepers in San Francisco to map out pollution levels throughout the city.

After successful results from this test, the program could then spread to other cities where pollution is a serious problem. With detailed spacial urban maps of air quality variations, city officials might then be able to really get a handle on primary sources of pollution and determine solutions for improving the urban atmosphere.

The research team is also proposing a next-generation version of this project, which would provide higher-resolution data and would involve a massive citizen science effort… including anyone with a cell phone. With air monitoring devices built into personal mobile devices that also contain GPS tracking software, real-time, continuous air sampling data can be transmitted to scientist’s databases. Live current conditions could also be provided back to the user, so people with asthma or other sensitive respiratory systems could consider avoiding parts of the city that was experiencing a “bad pollution day.”

Future research programs into “urban informatics” will ultimately rely on citizen science participation, and it’s exciting that Intel will likely be on the forefront of these efforts. Check out the research proposal linked below, sign up for their mailing list, and keep a watch on future opportunities to turn your cell phone into an ultimate data collecting device!
“Common Sense Research Project” Proposal from Intel Research Berkeley :: [ VISIT ]

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High-tech Amateur Research Investigates Fish DNA in NYC

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This summer, two recent graduates of Trinity School in Manhattan conducted an impressive research program of amateur science that might send food critics and restaurateurs rolling through the streets of New York City.

And, if you happened to click on the school’s link above you will notice that we’re talking about high school students!

Using a recently developed technique called DNA bar coding, a species can be identified by looking at a single gene without the need to sequence the entire genome. So, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss went out into the city and ate a lot of sushi and preserved a bit of each sample to send off to a lab for testing. At the University of Guelph in Ontario, a graduate student who works in the “Fish Bar Code of Life” project completed the genetic analysis and compared the results to the thousands of fish species already identified in their database.

Read more about how the two young citizen scientists became interested in sushi ID’ing and what they discovered…
“Fish Tale Has DNA Hook: Students Find Bad Labels” :: The New York Times :: August 21, 2008 :: [ READ ]

Bar code of Life Database [ VISIT ]

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Last updated June 20, 2022