Help scientists deter invasive crayfish species. Photo: Craywatch.org

Some of you may have fond memories of summers spent kneeling by nearby streams, peering intently for crayfish to play with (or cook up for dinner!). These tiny, lobster-like creatures are a staple of freshwater ecosystems, southern menus, and even neuroscience classes. (No kidding — I learned about action potentials from a wonderful college professor who studies crayfish!)

Not all crayfish are alike — some native species of crawdad are being outcompeted by invasive, non-native species. Indeed, nearly half of the North American crayfish varieties are considered to be threatened.

To combat the non-native invasion, Craywatch.org is enlisting citizen scientists to monitor the spread of invasive crayfish in North America. To participate, all you need is a smartphone with a camera and a GPS tag! Find a crayfish, snap a couple of close-ups, and upload to the group’s Flickr account. Presto — you’re a citizen scientist!

Dr. Zen Faulkes, a professor of biology at The University of Texas-Pan American, recently started this project after reading a study about the positive impact of citizen scientists on bee monitoring.

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Scientists in the San Juans study the health of local ecosystems. Photo: Kwiaht website

Up north, in Washington State’s tranquil San Juan Islands, members of the Kwiáht marine research team are hard at work keeping an eye on local sea life and terrestrial critters. Kwiaht, a word in the Coast Salish dialect, refers to a place that is physically healthy and spiritually clean.

The group hopes to ensure the continued health of the San Juan Island ecosystem by allowing local citizen scientists to participate in ecological research.

Want to volunteer? Contact Kwiaht’s program director to find out how you can become involved as well!

In addition to research and outreach, Kwiaht also aims to help restore terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by working with public land managers to develop conservation strategies.

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Energy is a strange thing.  It floats around you, fills you up until you’re about ready to burst, and then it skips off, leaving you to keep up as best you can.  Last Thursday and Friday were two full days of such energy, when 60 professionals from such exotic places as Alaska, Colombia and New Jersey got together to discuss why and how public participation in scientific research (PPSR) is necessary if we are to save the world’s biodiversity.  The amazing thing about this workshop wasn’t so much that these people had a similar goal (after all, who doesn’t want to save the world?), but rather that the participants brought such a diversity of backgrounds, academic disciplines and institutions to the table.

Although the participation of citizens in scientific research goes back centuries, it is only very recently that there has been a push and pull from many different areas, leading to an amazing expansion of this kind of research and a demand for new ideas, ways to engage, and methods to understand how and why this can ultimately lead us forward in conservation.  The 50+ projects that were represented during this workshop illustrated this expansion not only by what they had in common – citizen engagement, data collection, and links to better conservation management – but also by what they didn’t.  While some projects, like FrogWatch USA or Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, invite participants from across the United States to collect data on a wide geographical scale, other projects such as Ndee bini’ bida’ilzaahi (Pictures of Apache Land) and the Fresno Bird Count are place-specific, uniquely adapted to the needs of their local community and natural environment. Read the rest of this entry »

ACTUV Tactics Simulator (Image: DARPA)

Could you come up with a new way to track submarines? Could you outsmart a submarine commander?

If  you think you’re up to challenge, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) could use your help! DARPA is inviting citizens to get in the virtual driver seat of a new video game: the Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) Tactics Simulator.

The DARPA ACTUV project aims to develop the next generation of anti-submarine warfare software. But, first, researchers need to understand what approaches and methods are the most effective. You can provide that important data.

Just download the free software, and soon, you’ll be tracking enemy submarines and navigating among commercial submarine traffic. As you complete mission objectives, you will have the option to submit your tracking tactics to DARPA for analysis.

The game was written to simulate the evasion techniques used by actual submarines, challenging you to track them successfully. The best tactics will ultimately be incorporated into the software.

DARPA even let’s you see how you stack up against the competition. A discussion forum provides an opportunity for you to share your experiences and insights with other people who are playing the simulator.

Visit DARPA’s website to download the game and get all the details.

ACTUV Tactics Simulator (Image: DARPA)

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Did you know that you can contribute to science by blowing bubbles? It’s true! The Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network is asking citizen scientists in England to use bubbles to calculate wind direction and speed.

All you need to do is create a “bubble cone” using a piece of paper and some tape. Then, with some bubble solution, you’re ready to start launching bubbles and recording in which direction and how far they travel. Researchers on OPAL’s Climate Survey will use this data to investigate how human activities affect the climate.

This is just one of five easy ways that you can help scientists study the state of England’s natural environment. OPAL’s projects offer a wide range of opportunities to study biodiversity, soil health, air and water quality, and the impact of humans on climate.

The best part: people from all age groups and skill levels can participate, and the project website offers easy step-by-step instructions. It usually doesn’t take more than an hour to make an important contribution to science.

Check out the full list of projects! For more information, visit the official OPAL website.

A new partnership between Microsoft and the European Environmental Agency is combining detailed scientific information on air and water quality with observations made by citizen scientists.

Ever wondered about the air quality in Copenhagen? Or perhaps the water quality in Paris?

Eye on Earth uses Microsoft’s Bing Maps to combine goespatial and environmental data from 22,000 bathing sites and 1,000 air quality monitoring stations throughout Europe. An “air quality model” provides the air pollution situation between air quality monitoring stations.

Citizen scientists can contribute their knowledge by clicking on simple user feedback icons. For each location, the map displays the average yearly value of all ratings submitted by citizen scientists. Users can then overlay the environmental data with their own observations with the click of a mouse.

If you submit any observations, we’d love to know! Feel free to share your experience in our Member Blog section, leave a comment on our Facebook Page, or tweet us.

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As record levels of snow blanket much of the United States this year, Science For Citizens is collaborating with an important climate research project at the University of Waterloo called Snow Tweets. We’re pleased that this is the first of many scientific projects that you’ll be able to do on Science for Citizens.

To help researchers track climate change, we’re requesting that you find a ruler, put on a warm coat, go outside, and measure the depth of snow wherever you happen to be. And then report the depth to us right here. That’s all there is to it! You’re simple action will help the planet. Your data will advance climate science, and you’ll get to see your depth report appear on our world map of snow tweets.

To help you get started, we put together this “How To” video complete with some empirical evidence from your fellow citizen scientists. Enjoy, and please share wildly on your social network of choice.

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Below, I’ve listed the top 5 Science For Citizens member blog posts according to the number of visits received. It’s easy to start your very own Sci4Ctis member blog. Start sharing your adventures with other citizen scientists!

5. Rent a Remote-Controlled Telescope! From Michael
It’s pretty hard to be an amateur astronomer without your own telescope–or is it? Michael blogs about the Global Rent-a-Scope network, which lets would-be star gazers rent time on various “robotic telescopes” around the world. As a member, you can control these telescopes from the comfort of your home via the Internet and download images of the planets, stars, and galaxies you observe.

4. Collecting Data, Revising Hypothesis From Don
Data collected by citizen science groups can often provide the information scientists need to answer a question. However, just as often, the data provides the scientist with information the scientist wasn’t expecting, causing a rethinking of their hypothesis. This happened recently with the data collected by volunteers of the Firefly Watch Citizen Science Project.

3. Calling Worm Rangers! From GLWW

The Great Lakes Worm Watch’s 3rd Annual “Big Worm Week” was a free opportunity for all ages, youth to adult, to raise awareness and understanding of exotic earthworms. Participants learned how to conduct earthworm surveys and contribute to this growing citizen science effort. This was an important event because there is very little data collected on invasive earthworm species in the Great Lakes region.

2.The New Rugged Individualism From reinventor32

What is “open education”? Bennett describes it as the conscious and willful act of spreading knowledge and experience to others, helping others (especially younger people) to gain an appreciation and love for learning, and a desire to partner with and help educators especially in subjects relating to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Read more to find out what happens when we connect enthusiasm to the scientific process.

1. National Geographic Kids – November 2010 From Charlotte
Our most popular member blog post of 2010 belongs to Charlotte, who blogged about her favorite articles from the November edition of National Geographic Kids. Thanks Charlotte, and we look forward to more blog posts from you in the future!

Below, I’ve listed the top 10 Science for Citizen blog posts according to the number of visits. Thanks for joining our journey in our inaugural year. Wait until you hear what we’ve got cooking for 2011!

Happy New Year from the Sci4Cits team!

10. The hummingbird versus Godzilla–on video!

To fans of hummingbirds and “nature cams,” Phoebe Allens needs no introduction. She’s an intrepid little momma bird whose adventures in nurturing her young have been well documented by a Web cam pointed at her nest in a rose bush in Orange County, California. This spring, Phoebe bravely defended her nest from a lizard several times her size. She then removed a damaged egg so that it wouldn’t attract any more attackers.

9. What makes a good citizen science project–for you?

Before attending a panel discussion at the conference, ”Earth and Space Science: Making Connections in Education and Public Outreach,” Michael asked readers  about what makes a citizen science project successful for them. how important is it that you increase your own scientific knowledge as part of the project? How important is it that you contribute to scientific knowledge? Is it important to you that you do more than collect data?

8. Help needed: monarch butterflies in trouble

Monarch butterflies need our help! The regal butterflies, hit hard by the torrential February rains in Mexico, are at their lowest population levels since 1975, according to Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas. The storms killed 50 to 60 percent of the breeding colonies in northern Mexico; the butterfly population was already diminished by unfavorable conditions last summer.

7. Don’t know a chickadee from a warbler? There’s an app for that!
Looking for a convenient way to identify birds during your next citizen science excursion? Consider the WildLab Bird iPhone app, which uses photographs, audio, and maps to help you determine which bird you’ve spotted and makes it easy to share the observation with researchers at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. It’s wild!

6. Tracking Jellyfish around the globe

Have you seen a Jellyfish on a family vacation or on your yearly deep-sea fishing trip? JellyWatch is a new citizen science project that aims to create a database of jellyfish sightings across the globe. Just snap a picture if you can, and visit JellyWatch to record your sighting. If you went to the beach but didn’t see any jellyfish, that data can be used as well. And, the study is looking at more than just jellyfish — sightings of red tide, squid, or other unusual marine life will help build a long-term database that can be accessed and further developed by schools, policy makers, and the general public.

5. Spot the jellyfish – here or in Malta

One thing about Science for Citizens readers: they love Jellyfish! As this little guy (in the thumbnail) peers through a jellyfish on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, hundreds of citizen scientists are recording their jelly observations on the Mediterranean island of Malta. By reporting jellyfish that swim close to shore and identifying them using the project’s online guide, participants not only increase the public’s awareness about the types of jellyfish around Malta but also help others, as the site says, “avoid those stinging jellies!”

4. 10 back-to-school projects for citizen scientists

To keep young minds entertained as well as enlightened, we recommended 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. Visit our Project Finder for a full list of citizen science projects for primary and secondary school students.

3. Picture Post: the art of citizen science
Sometimes, science is the happy companion of art. And sometimes, art is the happy byproduct of science, as in the citizen-science effort known as Picture Post. This project wants you to do like Richard Misrach: Take photographs of the same place over a period of time, monitoring how the landscape and vegetation change.	>

2. Citizen science goes to the beach

As Memorial Day approached  and Americans slide into summer vacation, we mixed up a little surf and science cocktail for the lazy summer days ahead. Here are half a dozen citizen science projects you can participate in while at or near the beach. To find more watery science to do this summer, browse through the Ocean and Water category in our Project Finder. If you’d like to recommend other ocean-based projects,

1. A university for citizen scientists

Bard College, a liberal-arts school in New York state, is hoping to foster a lifelong interest in science with its new “Citizen Science Program,” a three-week intensive regimen required of all first-year students. The course, ready to roll in January 2011, aims to give all Bard’s freshmen in-depth exposure to scientific problem solving. Congrats to our blogger, Liz, for crafting the most popular blog post of the year!

Which citizen science projects in our Project Finder were the most visited in 2010? Check out the top 10! Is your favorite on this list? If not, tell us about your favorite citizen science project(s) on your very own (free) member blog!

10. 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!

9. REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project
Keep track of the fish you see while scuba diving or snorkeling, and submit those observations to an online database. You can start anytime, with or without a training class, as long as you can POSITIVELY identify the fish you see. This is a worldwide program for Pacific Coast, Tropical Eastern Pacific, Tropical Western Atlantic, Hawaii, and northeast U.S. and Canada.

8. 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!

7. Moon Zoo
Moon Zoo invites you to help astronomers count and analyze craters and boulders on the surface of the moon. You will examine images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which show the lunar surface in remarkable detail, including features as small as about one and a half feet across. While exploring the lunar surface, who knows what else you might find.

6. Texas Bee Watchers: 52 Gardens, 52 Weeks

Texas Bee Watchers aims to increase awareness and knowledge of native bees in Texas. In 2010, the Bee Watchers are challenging Texans to plant 52 Bee Gardens in 52 Weeks. To watch native bees, you only need to find some blooming plants. Once you see these hard-working insects, you may want to try catching a few native bees with a net, cooling them down in an ice chest, and looking at them close-up. Or maybe you’ll want to practice your photo skills and photograph them? Sounds fun? It is!

5. Sound Around You Project

The Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford is building a sound map of the world as part of a new study into how sounds in our everyday environment make us feel. They’re asking people across the world to use their mobile phones (or another audio recording device if their phone is not compatible) to record 10 to 15 second clips from different sound environments, or “soundscapes”–anything from the inside of a family car to a busy shopping center. Then, volunteers upload the clips to a virtual map, along with their opinions of the sounds and why they chose to record those particular sounds.

4. Stardust@Home

Join Stardust@Home in the search for interstellar dust!  On January 15, 2006, the Stardust spacecraft’s sample return capsule parachuted gently onto the Utah desert. Nestled within the capsule were precious particles collected during Stardust’s dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 in January of 2004; and something else, even rarer and no less precious: tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away. Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth!

3. 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.

2. Firefly Watch

Firefly Watch combines an annual summer evening ritual with scientific research. Boston’s Museum of Science has teamed up with researchers from Tufts University and Fitchburg State College to track the fate of these amazing insects. With your help, the project aims to learn about the geographic distribution of fireflies and their activity during the summer season. Fireflies also may be affected by human-made light and pesticides in lawns, so researchers hope to also learn more about those effects.

1. Laser Harp: Build It Yourself

Tech musician Stephen Hobley’s laser harp was the most popular project in our Project Finder. After building your laser harp, you’ll coax out the computer-generated sounds by waving your hands to break the light beams and change their lengths. We first found out about Stephone’s harp in recent issue of Make magazine that was devoted to build-them-yourself, high-tech musical instruments. Sounds awesome, huh?