How cool! Imagine if 1,000 people took a photo of the same landmark in a park, let’s say, over a set period of time. We’d realize what’s in that part of the park all the time and what’s there temporarily. Changes in nature (phenological changes, in particular) and other activities would be recorded and trended but what if near infrared filters were also placed on those cameras? We could then compare sensor data from the cameras to make good estimates about the temperatures in that park and compare that to usage statistics in that same park over the same time. We might be able to predict the day when leaves will fall from the park’s trees…and so much more.
Watch this short video to learn about other possible outcomes of using visual data for scientific study in the future. The possibilities seem endless.
From Intel Labs:

“In this video episode everyday photos are turned into visual data points to aid in the collection of data for scientific study. This segment is part of Vibrant Media, a series created by Intel Labs devoted to envisioning new ways to use Technology and Media.”

We especially like this excerpt:

And if you REALLY want to get involved, check out SciStarter, which is considered to be the largest aggregator of citizen science and crowdsourced projects.

You can get started by picking one of more than a dozen topics — astronomy, say, or birds or weather. Or you can pick an activity — at home, at the beach, on a hike.

Read full post.

The PPSR Conference takes place in Portland, Oregon, on August 4th and 5th, 2012. Photo: NASA

Our friends at the National Phenology Network and Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology shared the following with us:

A Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) will be held in Portland, Oregon on August 4th and 5th, 2012. This landmark event will convene science researchers, project leaders, educators, technology specialists, evaluators, and others from across many disciplines (including astronomy, molecular biology, human and environmental health, and ecology) to discuss advancing the field of PPSR.

The PPSR Conference is being held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), a venue that has long been supportive of citizen science and that always welcomes practitioners from diverse fields. PPSR Conference attendees may be interested in staying in Portland to attend – or even give a talk or poster at – the ESA conference that runs August 6th -10th.

ESA’s call for abstracts is now open, with a February 23rd deadline (please note that this call is for ESA only, NOT for the PPSR Conference): http://www.esa.org/portland/contributed.php.

More details about the PPSR Conference are available at CitizenScience.org/conference/2012, including the agenda, information on a forthcoming call for posters, and a poll for an early headcount.

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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.

For me, the Great Backyard Bird Count marks the beginning of the end of winter and the revving of my hopes for new migrants returning from the south. February can seem dark and endless in the northern hemisphere, but the sun is slowly stealing time from the night, early nesters are setting up shop, and I even consider bringing my binoculars to walk home with in the evening. I might actually be able to see something.

Events abound throughout the Great Backyard Bird Count, making it a great opportunity to shake off the winter doldrums and visit your local green spaces. In Philadelphia, I’ll start in my actual backyard, but I will also travel to my extended backyard at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and spend time with the PA Young Birders Club.

Whether in your jammies and snug at the window or learning the ropes with naturalists at a refuge, every bird counts. For help with bird identification and access to data submission forms, videos, pictures, and prize information (yes, there are prizes!), visit the project website.

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like Kickstarter but for citizen science: SciStarter! scistarter.com simple, brilliant.

— John Pavlus (@johnpavlus) February 8, 2012

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.)

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.

Citizen Scientist

My garden this year is a jumbled-up kind
My cow peas and daisies are all inter-twined
My botanist friend had me plant them just so
She’s collecting the data that may help her show
How a good mix of plants brings more insects afield
And maybe more bugs means a healthier yield
And I jumped at the chance to take part in her plan
Cause I’m happy to help when I can

I’m a citizen scientist
Citizen scientist
Joining the planet-wide dance
That helps human knowledge advance

I’ve weighed my tomatoes and measured their size
I’ve counted the cutworms and spiders and flies
My botanist friend takes the data all down
She’ll compare it with gardens from all over town
And maybe the numbers will show us the way
Toward gardening well without pesticide spray
But whether or not her study bares any fruit
It has still been a worthwhile pursuit

‘Cause I’m a citizen scientist
I’m a citizen scientist
Joining the planet-wide dance
That helps human knowledge advance

And when the garden has been tilled,
What new project will I do?
I could help explore the cosmos
For the Galaxy Zoo
I could sift through tiny fossils from mastodon times
I could try to fold some proteins with Fold.it online
In the Great Backyard Bird Count I could help keep track of birds
With SETI@home I could search for alien words
And for more exciting projects I could start working on
I’ll visit s c i starter dot com
I’ll visit s c i starter dot com

‘Cause I’m a citizen scientist
Citizen scientist
Joining the planet-wide dance
That helps human knowledge advance
And for more exciting projects I could start working on
I’ll visit s c i starter dot com (SciStarter)
I’ll visit s c i starter dot com (SciStarter)
I’ll visit s c i starter dot com

Science!

credits
released 04 December 2011
by Monty Harper

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!

Automated External Defibrillator (AED)

This project aims to crowdsource the first-of-its-kind map of Automated External Defibrillators in Philadelphia by photographing AEDs.

When someone collapses and stops breathing, an automated external defibrillator or AED can save their life. [Home AEDs are available for purchase.] In Philadelphia, PA, a city with about 1.5 million people, AEDs are all around us. Near our homes, workplaces, and even grocery stores! Currently, there is no comprehensive map, and, as a result, AEDs are often not used when they are most needed. With the crowdsourced information collected from this contest, the organizers will build a map of AED locations in Philadelphia that can inform 911 services and the public.

The MyHeartMap contest will officially go live January 31, 2012 at 9am! Until then, you can download the app from the iPhone store and Android marketplace and start submitting entries. Clues will be posted at the project website myheartmap.org and philly.org. The contest closes on March 13, 2012, at 6pm ET!

There are three ways to play:

1. Find and photograph the most AEDs in Philadelphia County before March 13, 2012 and win the $10,000 grand prize. The team or individual that finds the most “confirmed,” “eligible” AEDs by the contest end date will receive the grand prize of $10,000.

2. Be the first to submit a photograph of a “Golden”AED and win $50. The organizers have identified between 20 and 200 AEDs in Philadelphia County as “Golden” AEDs. These are unmarked, and you won’t know it’s a winner when you photograph it. Clues will be posted at the MyHeartMap project website.

3. Want to help but not compete for a prize? Submit addresses of locations without AEDs or that you wish had an AED – this is just for fun, and it will help with the map.

I had the opportunity to chat with the brains behind this project, Raina Merchant, Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine:

Raina Merchant

SciStarter: Why did you start this project, Raina?

Raina: I wanted everyone who had a cardiac arrest to survive and have a second chance at life. For this to happen, lots of different components of the chain of survival have to be in place. AEDs are an important link in the chain, and this seemed like a good place to start and then build on. I was disturbed to learn that although AEDs were in public places all over the world, no one knew where they were, and, in the event of an emergency, I couldn’t use my phone or emergency services to locate them. I wanted to approach the AED problem using a novel approach that engaged the public through technology, phones, and social media.

I learned about the DARPA Network Challenge (DNC) to locate red balloons from a colleague and thought that it seemed like a great approach to apply to a public health problem. The DNC showed that with the proper incentives, today’s “networked society” is able to virtually mobilize to help solve a challenge and importantly to innovate. When this challenge relates to the American public health system and the well-being of our citizens, there is the opportunity for the response to be equally strong if not better. Ultimately, studying how social networking can augment traditional research methods offers significant promise in approaching public health challenges that are essentially stuck and need a paradigm shift to advance

SciStarter: What do you hope to accomplish?

Raina: Our goals are to:
- Build the first U.S. city crowdsourced map of AEDs that can be made available to the 911 center and the public via a mobile phone.
- Gain a better understanding of the distribution of AEDs in Philadelphia so that we can determine optimal AED placement.
- Develop crowdsourcing and social media metrics related to data collection, validation, and surveillance.
- Use the information learned from this project to expand the MyHeartMap challenge to other US cities and then the rest of the U.S.

SciStarter: What persuaded you to make it participatory (involve the public)?

Raina: The traditional approach for locating AEDs would involve hiring a large team of research assistants to search for AEDs. This approach would be costly and time-consuming and wouldn’t help with improving the public’s awareness of AEDs in their environment. There are lots of examples of how citizen science projects can engage the public to help with data collection – the result is often a more empowered public and new ways of approaching health challenges.

SciStarter: Any concerns about the quality of data?

Raina: We recognize that collecting data about AEDs is difficult and that some data entries with low quality data will be intentional and others unintentional.

SciStarter: And surprising developments?

Raina: Several teams have contacted us and indicated that they are going to participate long-distance and collect data without being in Philadelphia. They are going to rely completely on data entered through social networks. We’re excited to see if this strategy works as this could provide important insights about how organizations can evaluate data they haven’t visualized.

SciStarter: Take a wild guess at how many defibs will be accounted for in total and how many will be spotted by the winner?

Raina: We think there are about 5000 AEDs in Philadelphia. We hope that winner uses a creative strategy to find most of them. I’ll guess 4997!

SciStarter: What’s next?

Raina: We hope to develop subsequent challenges in Philadelphia and then expand to collect AED data across the country. We’re also looking to use other social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gigwalk, Tumblr, Google Insights etc…..to engage the public to help us study and solve important public health challenges.

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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.

Citizen data provides the Trumpeter Swan Society with valuable tools for their work, including protecting swans from lead poisoning. In Washington State, the group advocated for and achieved a reduction in use of lead shotgun ammunition. Both waterfowl and terrestrial animals can accidentally ingest shot left in the environment, and slowly die from lead poisoning. The Trumpeter Swan Society continues to advocate for the use of non-toxic ammunition, and provides material support to biologists rescuing poisoned swans.

While these beautiful animals are most abundant in Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, Washington, and Alberta Province, Trumpeters have been seen in almost every state.

Trumpeter swan sightings: all years, all reports (via eBird)

The next time you spot a large swan, take a closer look. If it towers over all the other ducks, geese and swans around it, it could be a Trumpeter. Standing at up to 5 feet tall, this all-white bird with a big black bill and big black feet are hard to miss.