Citizen Science

It's summer and there's a whole lot of pollinating going on. Learn about scientists' efforts to monitor important pollinators like bumblebees, monarch butterflies and hummingbirds, and how you can help. Projects featured in this podcast are: Bumble Bee Watch Journey North Monarch Larva Monitoring Project

Summertime blues? Not on our watch! In this Summer Fun podcast, learn how you can plate and serve an ant picnic fit for a queen; use spider webs as air quality monitors; and help make cities around the world more accessible by strolling their sidewalks (virtually), looking for cracks, potholes, and missing curb cuts that could stop a wheelchair, stroller or walker in its tracks. Projects and websi...

Yes, Benjamin Franklin was a founding father of the United States, helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was the first Postmaster General. But he was also an energetic citizen scientist (even though the word "scientist" didn't yet exist). He studied electricity, the Gulf Stream, refrigeration and meteorology, and he published his research. He even conducted experiments on using electric...

It's spring, and the birds are back in town, so we're dedicating this episode of the SciStarter podcast to our avian neighbors. Get a peak into the secret world of woodpeckers, monitor the effects of climate change on birds, and learn how even city-dwellers can participate in bird research. Projects and websites featured in this podcast are: Woodpecker Cavity Cam Audubon's Climate Watch Celebrate...

Burst out of your winter hibernation and into some exciting springtime citizen science fun with this special, pre-Citizen Science Month podcast. Learn about Nature's Notebook and ISeeChange, and get the latest on CitSci library kits that you and your family can borrow. Projects and websites featured in this podcast are: SciStarter Library Network SciStarter Event Calendar Foundations of Citizen Sc...

By donating your time, energy and, for one project, a saliva and blood sample, you can help researchers make life-saving medical discoveries. In this episode, we focus on three of the many health-related citizen science projects in the SciStarter database. Projects and websites featured in this podcast are: National Library of Medicine/ All of Us Mobile Health and Movement Assessment Outbreaks Nea...

In this episode of Citizen Science, we learn about citizen science projects sponsored by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We speak with NOAA staff in charge of sharing their vast data sets with the public, managing meteorological data, and running their program on earth magnetism.   Projects featured in this podcast are: CoCoRaHS CrowdMag Find citizen science projects sup...

In this episode of Citizen Science, we share stories from citizen science volunteers about how they share citizen science with others, and about how they got involved in citizen science themselves. We speak with a school teacher in Texas, an astrophysics graduate student in India, a Girl Scout troop leader in Virginia and a college professor in Upstate New York.   Projects discussed in this podcas...

As a citizen scientist, you can help researchers explore the causes, effects and potential responses to global climate change and other environmental issues. And you can do it from home or out in the field! In this episode of Citizen Science: Stories of Science We Can Do Together, we explore six projects coming at the issue from six very different angles.  Discover these and many other climate cha...

NASA offers an entire universe of citizen science projects, and at CitSciCon – the first-of-its-kind online event series that was hosted by the Citizen Science Association and SciStarter in May of 2021 – project leaders and volunteers from dozens of those projects shared their stories. Check out this podcast to hear some of those stories, and if you'd like to learn more and participate in the feat...

Citizen Science Month is an opportunity to showcase the entire panoply of citizen science projects all over the world, and we try to capture it all in this roundup episode. Which isn't possible. But we do hope this show gives you a taste of what the month had to offer. If you want to go deeper, you can learn more at CitizenScienceMonth.org. Video of some of the webinars described in this podcast c...

Public libraries are playing an increasingly important role in citizen science, running educational programs – both in-person and online – and loaning out kits with citizen science instruments, material and other resources. And they are very involved with Citizen Science Month. In this podcast episode, Caroline and Bob speak with library-based partners implementing ambitious plans for Citizen Scie...

To kick off Season 2 of the Citizen Science podcast, new host Bob Hirshon and citizen science enthusiast Caroline Nickerson take a virtual trip around the world – and even into intergalactic space – to learn about some exciting new citizen science projects, including CrowdWater, Spiral Graph and Land Loss Lookout. In addition, they preview upcoming Citizen Science Month events coming this April. ...

This episode, our second that looks at community and citizen science in cultural heritage institutions, explores how natural history museums use crowdsourcing to unlock the potential of biodiversity collections for research and education. Justin Schell talks to researchers and volunteers involved in the Notes From Nature project, which is one of the largest crowdsourcing projects focused on natura...

North Carolina State University -- typically referred to as NCSU, NC State, or just State -- is a public research university in Raleigh, North Carolina and a leader in public engagement in science. In this episode, Caren Cooper, professor at NCSU, and student citizen science leader, Brianna Johns, discuss all the different components of a citizen science campus: the Citizen Science Club, the SciSt...

This is the first of two episodes that will focus on how citizen science can be done by and within cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums. In this episode, we’ll focus on how natural history museums and public libraries have involved members of their communities in projects that can contribute to local, national, and global understandings of scientific questions...

iNaturalist allows anyone, anywhere to contribute to a global record of biodiversity by uploading pictures of plants and animals with their smartphone or computer. In this episode, co-host Justin Schell talks with Dr. Carrie Seltzer, the Stakeholder Engagement Strategist for iNaturalist, about how the platform works, the iNaturalist community, and how iNaturalist advances scientific research. Feat...

With thousands of projects listed on SciStarter, a main challenge can be finding the right project, one that really suits your needs and your interests. After meeting at workshop on the Open Science of Learning hosting by the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Kobi Gal, a leading expert in human-centered artificial intelligence, and Darlene Cavalier, the founder of SciStarter, collaborat...

The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (or COASST, for short) project is a network of citizen scientists that monitor marine resources and ecosystem health at over 400 beaches across northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. COASST works to translate long-term monitoring into effective marine conservation solutions. Co-host Caroline Nickerson chats with Dee Richie, a citizen sc...

NASA-funded Community Snow Observations (CSO) project recruits citizen scientists to help collect snow depth observations – anytime and anywhere, and then they can submit their observations via the mobile-sharing platform Mountain Hub. Co-host Caroline Nickerson chats with one of the project leaders, David Hill, and one of CSO’s volunteers, Katie O’Connell, talk about the importance of collecting...

This episode spotlights EarthEcho International and one of the organization’s signature programs, the EarthEcho Water Challenge. Kicking off in March each year on World Water Day, EarthEcho encourages participation in the Water Challenge year-round. Founded by the grandchildren of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, EarthEcho's mission is to inspire young people throughout the world to take action fo...

This episode is all about trees and how users of the Curio can map and monitor urban and community trees globally. Terrence Pickles is the founder of Exeter Trees, which attempts to document and preserve every tree in Exeter, in the UK, using both YouTube and the Curio app, which was developed by our second guest, Paul Hickey. Co-host Caroline Nickerson talks to Terrence and Paul about their motiv...

This episode features a conversation between Samantha Harrington, ISeeChange's Digital Community Manager, and Amber Kleinman, a volunteer who uses ISeeChange to document weather events in Paonia, a small town in western Colorado. ISeeChange is a platform to help users and their communities document weather in their own backyards, bringing greater visibility to effects of climate change through mul...

This episode features a conversation between Kyle Copas, Communications Manager at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which is known as GBIF, and John Turnbull, the Sydney, Australian coordinator for Reef Life Survey. The focus of this conversation is citizen science data: how it’s collected, what happens to it, and what is the process from collection by citizen scientists to the transf...

Our first "mini-sode" is an interview with Dr. Jessica Wardlaw at the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab talking about the Slavery From Space project, which allows allows users to contribute to the antislavery movement by mapping the locations of activities in which people are frequently found to be enslaved. A transcript of the episode can be accessed here.