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Citizen Science
The Sea Grant Community Science (CS) Network facilitates interaction among Sea Grant CS initiatives nation-wide. In addition, it provides professional development training for community science practitioners and shares best practices for implementing place-based community science efforts. With over 80 projects, Sea Grant is a vital collaborator and resource in the field. Using community science widely as a place-based research, outreach and education strategy to address the four National Sea Grant focus areas (see below), Sea Grant works to provide inclusive and equitable opportunities for diverse participants and partners to advance science and inform decision-making.
One of the world’s most popular nature apps, iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you. Get connected with a community of over 750,000 scientists and naturalists who can help you learn more about nature! What’s more, by recording and sharing your observations, you’ll create research quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature. iNaturalist is a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.
eBird began with a simple idea—that every birdwatcher has unique knowledge and experience.. It is the world’s largest biodiversity-related citizen science project, with more than 100 million bird sightings contributed each year by eBirders around the world. A collaborative enterprise with hundreds of partner organizations, thousands of regional experts, and hundreds of thousands of users, eBird is managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Celebrate Urban Birds is a citizen science project focused on better understanding the value of green spaces for birds. This project connects people of all ages and backgrounds to birds and the natural world through the arts and fun neighborhood activities.This project is also managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Galaxy Zoo’s ask volunteers to help explore galaxies. Sampling a fraction of the roughly one hundred billion that are scattered throughout the observable Universe. Each one of the systems, containing billions of stars, has had a unique life, interacting with its surroundings and with other galaxies in many different ways; the aim of the Galaxy Zoo team is to try and understand these processes, and to work out what galaxies can tell us about the past, present and future of the Universe as a whole. Zoo’s strategy is based on the remarkable fact that you can tell a lot about a galaxy just from its shape.
Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure & submit their night sky brightness observations. It’s easy to get involved – all you need is computer or smart phone.
NASA invites gamers and citizen scientists to embark on virtual ocean research expeditions to help map coral reefs around the world. NeMO-Net is a video game in which players identify and classify corals using these 3D images while virtually traveling the ocean on their own research vessel, the Nautilus. On each “dive,” players interact with real NASA data and learning about the different kinds of corals that lie on the shallow ocean floor. Aboard their virtual research vessel, players will be able to track their progress, earn badges and access educational videos about life on the sea floor.
Old Weather volunteers explore, mark, and transcribe historic ship’s logs from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Due to diverse and idiosyncratic handwriting only human beings can read and effectively understand this work, not computers. By participating in Old Weather you’ll be helping advance research in multiple fields. Since many of these logs haven’t been examined since they were originally filled in by a mariner long ago you might even discover something surprising.
SciStarter is an online community dedicated to improving the citizen science experience for project managers and participants. Over 3,000 projects and events are searchable by location, scientific topic, and age level, and by joining SciStarter, members can track their contributions and provide valuable feedback. SciStarter also supports researchers in managing projects, including best practices for engaging participant partners.
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — more than a million people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. You’ll be able to study authentic objects of interest gathered by researchers, like images of faraway galaxies, historical records and diaries, or videos of animals in their natural habitats. By answering simple questions about them, you’ll help contribute to our understanding of our world, our history, our Universe, and more.