Citizen Science

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Citizen science refers to the involvement, participation and engagement of citizens in local or online (global) scientific work relevant to the citizens' interests, usually as a hobby, often as a passion.

Citizen science can include such activities as:

• Reviewing photographs or data online and spotting patterns, anomalies, things of interest etc.
• Taking field samples in local areas such as water from creeks/rivers, monitoring air quality
• Taking note of and listing species spotted, to help scientists assess decline or increase in species in certain areas; for example, see Big Garden Birdwatch as one example of such an activity
• Going through old scientific records and finding relevant data from the past and/or digitizing data for future use
• Taking measurements, keeping specific records, noting changes, etc. related to the local environment
• Sharing scientific information with other citizens in layperson's terms to spread understanding and engagement

News

Resources

• Zooniverse, world's largest platform for people-powered research connecting professional researchers with millions of volunteers worldwide. added 18:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
• Digital Tools for Citizen Science is a Github curated list of awesome software and other resources to enable those who want to use scientific tools to empower communities and/or practice various forms of non-institutional science. https://github.com/dylanrees/citizen-science.
• Learning through citizen science: Enhancing opportunities by design, The National Academies Press at https://www.nap.edu/download/25183
• Public Lab is a non-profit with the mission of democratizing science to address environmental issues by developing open-source tools for environmental exploration and investigation. Public Lab, https://publiclab.org

See also: Community involvement