Citizen Science Show

At CitSciOz25, I found myself immersed in the world of bogong moths with Dr Eleanor Drinkwater, whose enthusiasm for these small, unassuming insects is contagious. She explained how these moths, despite their size, undertake one of the longest insect migrations on the planet. They emerge in northern New South Wales and travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to the Snowy Mountains, where t...

Presenting at CitSciOz25 gave me the chance to share a project that has reshaped how I think about science, trust and the way people connect with their local environment. The Great Australian Wildlife Search began as a collaboration between the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, the Odonata Foundation and EnviroDNA, but it quickly grew into something far bigger once communities stepped in. Our aim wa...

Andrew Stempel is the president of the Australian Speleological Federation,. He leads a community of nearly a thousand volunteers exploring and protecting Australia’s vast underground landscapes. Formed in 1956 in Adelaide, the federation—soon to be rebranded as Caves Australia—unites 26 clubs across the nation. Every caver contributes to a growing digital archive, preserving decades of handwritte...

At Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, mycologist Dr Tom May devotes his work to exploring the vast and often unseen world of fungi. His focus is taxonomy—identifying, classifying, and cataloguing the remarkable diversity of fungal species across Australia. Within the Gardens’ Fungarium, Tom oversees a collection of more than 100,000 preserved specimens, one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere....

At the CitSciOz25 conference in Melbourne, Kara-Mae Coulter-Atkins spoke about her work with the Healthy Waters Partnership for the Dry Tropics, an organisation that connects government, industry, research institutions, and citizen scientists to protect waterways around Townsville and the Great Barrier Reef. Kara-Mae describes her role as a data end user—someone who turns raw data collected by oth...

At the CitSciOz25 conference in Melbourne, one presenter stood out not just for his enthusiasm but for his age. Twelve-year-old David Mabb, the youngest speaker at the Australian Citizen Science Association event, has already spent half his life immersed in the world of BioBlitzing. His fascination with nature began when his mother, Michelle, took him along to one of her own citizen science events...

At the CitSciOz25 conference, Dr Jack Nunn presented a discussion paper created in collaboration with the Australian Citizen Science Association and the Australian Academy of Science’s Theo Murphy Institute. Using participatory methods, the team explored the challenges within citizen science and identified ways to improve it. Over fifty contributors provided more than sixteen thousand words of inp...

At the Citizen Science Conference in Melbourne, Gregory Andrews spoke with both urgency and hope. A Dharawal man from southwest Sydney, Gregory describes his deep connection to Country, believing that every Australian shares a similar bond when they live respectfully with the land. His totem, the lyrebird, guides his life’s work. Like the lyrebird that speaks many languages, Gregory has spent his...

After more than two decades in the university sector, Fiona Sutton Wilson realised that middle management no longer fulfilled her desire to make a tangible difference. Surrounded by policy and research, she felt drawn toward work that would more directly benefit the environment. A turning point came during a week-long bush retreat with a group of women, where the quiet of nature reawakened her chi...

At the Australian Museum, Nadiah Roslan coordinates FrogID, a citizen science project that has transformed the understanding of frog conservation since its launch in 2017. Supported by Inspiring Australia and IBM, FrogID began with a simple idea—use smartphones to listen to frogs and turn their calls into valuable scientific data. Each frog species has a unique sound, making acoustic monitoring an...

Dr. Megan Halcroft never imagined that her fascination with bees would begin while studying horticultural science after years of working as a nurse. What started with a unit on apiculture evolved into a lifelong commitment to understanding and protecting Australia’s native bees. Megan started Australian Pollinator Week which was launched in 2015 with 26 events, gaining recognition from the Environ...

In Antarctica, Lucia Morillo has witnessed another form of exploitation: the industrial harvesting of krill. Once thought to be limitless, krill are now targeted for luxury products such as omega-3 supplements and additives for salmon farms. While the fishery is technically legal, its regulation under the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is deeply flawe...

Debbie Breen and Alexis Ting are volunteers with Hunter Wildlife Rescue, dedicating their time, homes, finances, and emotional strength to animals in crisis. Their work reveals a reality far removed from the romantic image often associated with wildlife care. Hunter Wildlife Rescue was founded more than 36 years ago by Audrey Koosman and originally focused on the lower and upper Hunter Valley. Ove...

Faith Coleman is an estuarine ecologist who specialises in aquatic microbia, water chemistry and sediment dynamics. She is currently involved in studying and collecting data in relation to the Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) off the South Australian coastline. You can see images of Karenia and the research on the Facebook page; Phytoplankton of South Australia. More information https://www.linkedin.com/...

Tonight on the show we are talking to two guests who are leading the way in biodiversity monitoring and conservation by using technology to enable land owners to monitor their land through the model of land libraries.  In partnership with participating land owners, Education Program Team Leader Alice McGrath of the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust and Aaron Clausen, Founder and Direct...

The Orange-bellied Parrot is one of the rarest birds in the world and one of only three migratory parrot species. Each year, it breeds in the remote wilderness of Melaleuca in southwest Tasmania before attempting the perilous journey across Bass Strait to the coasts of Victoria and South Australia. Its survival depends on a delicate balance of habitat, safe migration, and human intervention. Kerri...

From an early age, Capri Joliffe was captivated by the ocean and its inhabitants. A book on dolphin acoustics she read as a child fixed her ambition to become a marine biologist and to study how whales and dolphins communicate. That passion carried her through studies in marine biology and zoology, then into a PhD in applied physics at Curtin University, where she focused on the acoustic communica...

Anke Maria Hoefer an enthusiastic and energetic morphologist and behavioural ecologist who studied Garden Skinks for her post graduate studies at the Australian National University.  She is focused on creating inclusive environments for communities, is an advocate for Citizen Science and has been running the ACT & Region FrogWatch Program since 2011.  More Information https://ginnind...

At the Hunter Science Festival in Newcastle, Mark Murray of the Newcastle Astronomical Society shared his enthusiasm for the night sky, which is matched only by his deep knowledge of it. The Society had hosted an observing night at Lake Macquarie the evening before, registering 400 attendees despite poor weather. On the festival day itself, the sun shone down on the museum grounds where curious vi...

At the heart of the Newcastle Museum during National Science Week, Macker McKrell from the Hunter Innovation and Science Hub (HISH) introduced children to the world of robotics. His aim was simple yet profound: to give young people the opportunity to play, experiment, and explore why things move and how they can be controlled. He emphasised that this curiosity is vital, particularly in a country l...

At the Hunter Science Festival in Newcastle, botanist Lily Mickaill spoke with conviction and warmth about her work in seed conservation. Based at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, she represents a new generation of scientists dedicating their careers to protecting biodiversity. Her focus lies on something deceptively small yet enormously powerful: seeds. More Information https://www.botanicgar...

At the Hunter Science Festival, Brooke Harvey, a PhD student at the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), welcomed visitors into the Poo Palace—a hands-on exhibit that takes people on a playful journey through the digestive system. While she spent the day guiding children and adults through foam pits, slides, and interactive explanations of gut health, her acade...

At the Hunter Science Festival 2025, one of the youngest volunteers stood out not just for his age but for his extraordinary dedication to waste management. Thirteen-year-old Caz Martin, a year eight student originally from Taree and now living in the Hunter Valley, has turned his fascination with garbage into a mission to make his community cleaner and smarter about waste. More Information https:...

Dr Simon Berrow is a man with shark fever. He has been passionately obsessed with basking sharks since the 1980’s and he is the founder of the Irish Basking Shark Group. He has been influential in the protection of basking sharks and has successfully lobbied the Irish government to get legal protection for these ancient creatures.  He is the CEO of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and after...

When asked about his lifelong passion, Paul Revie smiles and recalls a childhood picnic in Goomburra. At just nine years old, he watched a spotted animal leap onto the family’s table and snatch sausages before vanishing into the bush. It was only after consulting his family’s World Book Encyclopedia that he discovered the culprit—a spotted-tailed quoll. That moment sparked an obsession that has ne...