Your friendly neighborhood Downy Woodpecker, courtesy of Jerry Acton, NY

On the morning of Friday, February 17, I will wake up before work, pour myself a cup of coffee, and stare out my window for 15 minutes. As long as I submit my observations to the Great Backyard Bird Count, my 15 minutes of zone-out time before I jump in the shower will qualify as productive science.

The Great Backyard Bird Count runs from Friday the 17th through Monday the 20th, and it’s as easy as using a few pajama moments to participate.

Wherever you are, simply stop in your tracks and take a look around for birds. You can in your backyard, outside of the your local cafe, at the playground, or around your driveway — anywhere! Anyone can participate, and the coolest part is that even a report of a single robin matters more than usual, because people across the world will be observing and reporting all at once. In 2011 alone, this huge concerted effort yielded 1,044,346 robins alone!

The data are collected by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, The National Audubon Society, and Bird Studies Canada, and are used to gauge how birds have fared over the winter. With the help of citizen scientists everywhere, researchers get a widespread snapshot of bird abundance and distribution right before migration heats up.

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Some of you expressed interest in viewing the slides I shared during a talk at the Microbe.net workshop at UC Davis.

The talk was designed to give an overview of citizen science projects and a peek at the opportunities and challenges ahead for people involved in the production of such projects. It also pointed towards the next, organic phase of citizen science in which participants actively shape policies.

Related:
Harnessing the power of citizen scientists (Darlene Cavalier. Science Progress. July 2008.)
Reinventing Technology Assessment in the 21st Century (Richard Sclove. Science and Technology Innovation Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. April 2010.)

Citizen scientists around the world finally have their own anthem!

Monty Harper, an Oklahama-based educator and entertainer, has released his latest song, “Citizen Scientist,” featuring SciStarter! We’ve adopted this as our theme song. Harper drew inspiration from the research of Dr. Janette Steets, a botanist at Oklahoma State University. And the best part is that Monty is a citizen scientist himself! He has personally participated in most of the projects mentioned in the song.

If you like the song as much as we do, please share with your friends, family, and anyone who else you think might be interested in learning about real science projects they can do.

Monty has been educating and entertaining children with his music about reading, creativity, and science since 1992. He’s the host of Born to Do Science, a live program and podcast that uses music to connect kids and families with scientists and their work. If you’d like to listen Monty’s other songs, selections from the program are featured on Harper’s Songs From the Science Frontier CD.

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This is a guest blog post from Daniel Smith, a postdoc in the Computing and Environmental Life Sciences center at Argonne National Laboratory. His job is to examine communities of bacteria and describe how people effect, or are effected by, variations in the microscopic species constantly interacting with us and the environment.

Most of us are aware of the bacteria on the surfaces we come in contact with. The doorknob for the bathroom, coins and paper currency in our pockets, handrails in subway cars, computer keyboards and mice at the library… the list of built environments on which microbes thrive is nearly endless. In our preoccupation with concern for what might be transferred from these surfaces to our hands, we often completely forget that the microbes living on our hands are also being transferred to everything we touch. And as dirty as some surfaces are, they pale in comparison to you and I. Numerically speaking, human beings are 90% bacteria! Even washing our hands and gargling with mouthwash does not erase their presence from our bodies, which is fortunate, because these bacteria are essential for our health and well-being by helping us digest food and keeping away more dangerous microbes.

Each person’s collection of microorganisms is different. And in fact, the collection of bacteria on your right hand is different from the collection on your left hand, and the bacteria on your cheek are different from the ones on your chin. The compositions of these bacterial communities change very little day-to-day.

Now think about the light-switch in your bedroom. The one that only you touch, using the same hand, every day. Does it match the bacterial fingerprint for your hand? And if it does, did you put your bacterial community on the light switch… or, did the light switch’s bacterial community jump to your hand? And what about the other surfaces in your home that you interact with every day such as floors, doorknobs, and countertops?

I want to find the answers to these questions. To do so, my colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory and I are looking for volunteers who are about to move to a different house to join the Home Microbiome Study. They will be asked to collect samples every other day for six weeks to monitor how microbiomes of themselves and their house change in response to one another. This data will provide valuable information on how stable our microbiomes are, and whether our microbiomes colonize our house… or our house’s microbiome colonizes us!

Photo courtesy of Adrian Binns

The Trumpeter Swan is the largest bird in North America, but in the early 20th Century, they were extremely hard to see.

Over-hunted for their feathers and skins, these beautiful birds once teetered on extinction. In the early 1900s, fewer than 100 remained in the wild. Despite decades of subsequent protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the population grew only to 700 individuals by the 1960s.

The Trumpeter Swan Society formed in 1968 to better coordinate Trumpeter conservation through advocacy, research coordination, and habitat restoration. Since then, the number of Trumpeters in North America has increased to an impressive more than 34,000 individuals. The swans are now independently finding wintering grounds across the Lower 48, and the Society needs citizen scientists to report these pioneering birds.

To be a part of the effort to protect this successfully restored species, visit the Trumpeter Swan Watch and report your sightings. Visit the Trumpeter Swan Society for a printable identification guide. Read the rest of this entry »

Drumroll, please! Here are SciStarter’s top 11 citizen science projects from the past year. The list was generated based on the number of visits in our Project Finder.

Thanks for joining our journey. Wait until you hear what we’ve got cooking for 2012!

Happy New Year from the SciStarter team!

11. ClimatePrediction.net
Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project that aims to produce predictions of the Earth’s climate up to the year 2300 and to test the accuracy of climate models. To do this, the project needs people around the world to volunteer time on their computers – time when their computers are on but not being used at full capacity.

10. Gravestone Project

Help researchers map the location of graveyards around the globe and then use marble gravestones in those graveyards to measure the weathering rate of marble at that location. The weathering rates of gravestones are an indication of changes in the acidity of rainfall between locations and over time. The acidity is affected by air pollution and other factors, and could be used as a measure of changes in climate and pollution levels.

9. Project Squirrel

Project Squirrel is calling all citizen scientists to count the number of squirrels in their neighborhoods and report their findings. The goal is to understand urban squirrel biology, including everything from squirrels to migratory birds, nocturnal mammals, and secretive reptiles and amphibians. To gain data on squirrel populations across the United States, citizen scientists will also be asked, when possible, to distinguish between two different types of tree squirrels – gray and fox. Anyone can participate in Project Squirrel!

8. Foldit: Solve Protein Puzzles for Science

Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research. Researchers are collecting data to find out if humans’ pattern-recognition and puzzle-solving abilities make them more efficient than existing computer programs at pattern-folding tasks. If this turns out to be true, researchers can then teach human strategies to computers and fold proteins faster than ever!

7. Great World Wide Star Count
This Great World Wide Star Count is an international event that encourages learning in astronomy by inviting everyone to go outside, look skywards after dark, count the stars they see in certain constellations, and report what they see online. Participating in the event is fun and easy! You can join thousands of other students, families and citizen scientists from around the world counting stars.

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Drumroll, please! Here are the top 11 SciStarter blog posts from the past year (according to the number of visits). Thanks for joining our journey. Wait until you hear what we’ve got cooking for 2012!

Happy New Year from the SciStarter team!

PS Stay tuned — we’ll post the top 11 citizen science projects of 2011 tomorrow morning.

11. Citizen Paleontologists Are Making History
Several research projects are combining the skills and interests of citizen paleontologists with those of scientists in order to help us understand more about earth’s history and evolution. Here are a few examples of projects that are getting citizens and researchers working together and leading to scientific discoveries.

10. Book Review: The Intersection by Tom Cole
The Intersection is the story of a man’s passion told through his data. Cole starts with a short essay on his data journey, presents summary statistics (life list for that location, most numerous birds), then launches into a bird-by-bird summary, much like a field guide. Blogger Kate Atkins provides her full review.

9. What’s in your water heater? NASA wants to know!

Researchers at Penn State University need your help to study the distribution of microorganisms in household hot water heaters. John had a chance to chat with Dr. Chris House, Associate Professor of Geosciences & Director of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, to get the inside scoop on microbes, why they’re important, and how the study will help NASA understand extreme environments around the Solar System.

8. Measure and record earliest signs of hurricane Irene
Before Hurricane Irene, we provided a few examples of how you could help scientists record and share on-the-ground observations to help pinpoint hurricane Irene’s actions, determine her next steps, and better predict and react to future storms. We also provided a list of opportunities to get involved in local watershed monitoring efforts.

7. 10 back-to-school projects for young citizen scientists

As summer comes to a close, a young person’s fancy may turn to fretting at the thought of being cooped up in a classroom. But for fans of science and nature—and by that we mean kids who like to watch clouds, hunt mushrooms, prowl around graveyards, and check out what gets squashed on the side of the road—fall need not signal the end of fun. To keep young minds entertained as well as enlightened, we recommended the following 10 back-to-school projects for student citizen scientists. Teachers and parents, please note: Many of these programs provide materials around which you can build lessons. And there are lots more where these came from.

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Make sure you’re on Santa’s “nice list” this year. Consider helping researchers help the planet this holiday season. Here are a dozen opportunities to get involved in real research during the 12 days of Christmas!

On the first day of Christmas, Missouri gave to me…an opportunity to help stem the threat of invasive pear trees in Missouri’s urban forest and in other parts of the U.S.

On the 2nd day of Christmas, the UK’s British Trust for Ornithology gave to me….the Nest Record Scheme, a citizen science project to monitor the the turtle dove, the UK’s most most threatened farmland bird, and many others.

On the 3rd day of Christmas, Iowa gave to me…the Greater Prairie Chicken Project ensure these future hens remain in Iowa.

On the 4th day of Christmas, the National Audubon Society gave to me…the world’s longest running citizen science project, the Christmas Bird Count.

On the 5th day of Christmas, Nevada gave to me…the chance to collect monthly water quality data at the Yuba River, which is affected by gold mining.

On the 6th of Christmas, Seattle Audubon Society gave to me… the chance to help seabird researchers create a snapshot of geese density on more than three square miles of nearshore saltwater habitat.

On the 7th day of Christmas, the Swan Society of the University of Melbourne gave to me…the My Swan project to report sightings of tagged black swans around the world.

On the 8th day of Christmas, Zooniverse gave to me…the Milky Way Project, a chance to help scientists study our galaxy, as well as the Milky Way advent calendar and even Milky Way tree ornaments!

On the 9th day of Christmas, the Science Cheerleaders gave to me…1300 young ladies cheering for citizen science as they set a new Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Cheer!

On the 10th day of Christmas, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums gave to me…FrogWatch, an opportunity to help protect frogs-a-leaping.

On the 11th day of Christmas, Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology gave to me, Science Pipes, a free service that lets you connect to real biodiversity data, use simple tools to create visualizations and feeds, and embed results on your own web site or blog.

On the 12th day of Christmas, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation gave to me…the Ruffed Grouse Drumming Survey to help hunters survey the population of ruffed grouse during breeding season.

If you’re fortunate to experience a white Christmas, consider sending your snow depth measurements to cryosphere researchers at the University of Waterloo’s Snow Tweets project. They want to use your real-time measurements to help calibrate the accuracy of satellite instruments currently measuring snow precipitation.

Happy holidays from the SciStarter team!

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Step back to 1995. You have a paper address book – family, friends, business – but it’s too big. You’ve been so many places and met so many people that you can’t distinguish John Smith the college buddy from John Smith at the office. It’s time to get organized with a computer program.

You buy one off the shelf, meticulously enter the data, but over time find it wanting. What to do? Write your own program of course, then a few years later, do it again.

This is what Tom Cole, ESL teacher and game programmer, did with his birdwatching data. After decades of keeping a bird rolodex on paper, he went digital in the 1990s, and never looked back. His self-published edition, The Intersection: Seventeen Years of Bird Processing on One Street Corner of the World, tells this story.

The corner is in Gilbert, AZ, in the not-so-natural-looking Phoenix metro area. As a city birder, I feel great affinity for a person who birds a tough urban spot and finds treasure year after year. The resulting data collection is astounding. Much like baseball enthusiasts, not all birders keep a strict set of scorecards, but Tom Cole did, and still does. The value of that data, and its extreme organization, cannot be overstated. Professional ornithologists would seek grants and graduate students to forge such a dataset, but this man did it simply because he wanted to.

Newer birders are extremely fortunate. We have any number of software packages and apps and DVDs and CDs to add to our field guide collections, to use with or in lieu of our notebooks. That is, if we take notes at all.

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Welcome to the new and improved Science for Citizens…now known as SciStarter!

The upgrade was designed to make it easier for you to find, learn about, and get involved in citizen science projects of interest to you. Now, you can search by topic (birds, astronomy, etc) or by activity (while at the beach, on a hike, etc). We’ve also made it simpler for researchers and project organizers to add their projects to our robust Project Finder.

Please take some time to click around the site, and let us know what you think. What do you like? What improvements would you like to see? We’ve built this with you in mind, so your feedback is very helpful. Feel free to leave a comment, below, or email us at info@scistarter.com.

This weekend, SciStarter is featured on the popular Forbes site, Techonomy: Revolutions in Progress. Here’s an excerpt from that story:

When an earthquake shook the mid-Atlantic states this summer, the US Geological Survey got help gauging the accuracy of its seismographic equipment from Science For Citizens users who Tweeted details about their location and the impact they felt. University of Waterloo researchers have also relied on Science for Citizens for help calibrating weather-reading instruments by comparing satellite-based estimates to the site’s users’ measurements of actual snowfall where they live. And scientists at the Paleontological Research Institution who recovered a mastodon fossil from Hyde Park, NY, a decade ago are still learning about Pleistocene ecology from Science for Citizen volunteers who have been sifting through the 22 tons of matrix that was excavated there.

SciStarter.com, a new and improved iteration of Science for Citizens that launched this week, is designed to facilitate more of this kind of crowdsourced science by matching citizen scientists with research projects that need their help. Whether it’s collecting volcanic ash, tracking diabetic health, or taking microbial samples from their water heater tanks, SciStarter volunteers will find hundreds of opportunities to contribute to science in their spare time. Researchers can tap the resources of the growing citizen science community by posting projects there.

The only website of its kind, SciStarter could also prove useful in emergency response and public health crises. Founder Darlene Cavalier says the site is already equipped to respond to pop-up crises and pandemics, with projects such as SafeCast—the radiation detection and reporting system enacted recently in Japan—ready to go in the SciStarter database.

We encourage you to read the full post here.

Thank you for choosing to be part of our growing community. Keep experimenting!

-The SciStarter Team

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