Cover Photo: Rios Saludables de Osa, Costa Rica You or your organization have decided to get involved in citizen science. Great! But where do you begin? Should you start by creating a brand new project around an idea your boss mentioned? Should you join an existing project and add to their data collection efforts? How
Citizen science starts with an idea All citizen science and community science projects begin as ideas. Perhaps you work for a city and are interested in how local greenspaces support pollinators. Or maybe you’re a researcher trying to understand how invasive plants spread. Or you’re a member of your community concerned about how activities affect
What do you do when a new industry or development comes to your community with the potential to shake-up natural resources? When the shale and natural gas boom came to Pennsylvania in 2010, many communities throughout the state were confronted with that very question. Large developments sprung up in areas historically spared from energy development,
Calling all project managers – we need your training materials! Do you ever wonder how your training materials and approaches influence data quality? You work hard to develop training materials and offer in-person trainings for your volunteers, yet the scholarly literature suggests that, despite your best efforts, land managers and scientists may still question the
A BioBlitz is a rapid species inventory that generally occurs over a 24 hour period with scientists and citizen scientists counting as many species as they can over this time in a given place. The goal of BioBlitz programs is to get the public excited about the science opportunities within their own backyard while at
Spring is finally here and with it comes Citizen Science Day on April 14th! Join us in celebrating the amazing work of volunteers like yourselves from around the world! Special Volunteers At CitSci.org, we are inspired by the work volunteers do for their projects! We’d like to take this opportunity to share some inspirational stories
What is Stream Tracker? As spotlighted in our March Newsletter, Stream Tracker is a citizen science project funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program. It is run out of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (ESS) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Stream Tracker studies intermittent streams – i.e., streams
What is a hypothesis and why do I need one? Developing a hypothesis is the next step in the scientific method after you’ve developed your research question. (For more information on developing a research question, check out our last blog post. A hypothesis is essentially a tentative explanation related to your research question. Sometimes referred to
Written by: Ellen Eisenbeis and Stacy Lynn Why is My Research Question Important? Setting your project up for success involves developing a research question that is clear, concise and achievable. This can be challenging, but is an essential step to creating a quality study. According to Jane Agee’s work on developing qualitative research questions, poorly
By: Holden Sparacino, Outreach Manager with Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) Over the past two years, the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) has worked with CitSci.org to develop ALLARMwater.org, a database to house volunteer-collected data from hundreds of monitoring sites across Pennsylvania and New York, investigating small streams for potential impacts from shale
