Blog: Citizen Science Projects, People, and Perspectives
By Carolyn Graybeal, Nov 12, 2013
Science endeavors to be a collaborative and open process. Unfortunately, it can be challenging for independent citizen scientists to share their data or publish their research findings. “Despite the quality of their work, competent amateurs and citizen scientists are not well-represented in the research literature,” explains Dr. Sheldon Greaves co-founder and Executive Director of the … Read more “Open science: resources for sharing and publishing citizen science research”
Categories: Citizen Science, Computers & Technology
By Carolyn Graybeal, Nov 05, 2013
Absolute pitch, also known as “perfect pitch” is the ability to instantaneously identify a musical note or recreate that note without an external reference. It is not fully understood why some people have perfect pitch and others do not, but it seems to require both an innate predisposition as well as musical training. Do you … Read more “Perfect Pitch: Citizen Science for Your Ears”
Categories: Citizen Science
By Carolyn Graybeal, Oct 21, 2013
Recently researchers at Michigan State University have been turning their attention to how we study plant photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the biological process by which plants and algae convert light into storable energy for growth and survival. Quantifying photosynthesis levels can reveal a lot about plant health. For example how efficient is the plant in capturing … Read more “Photosynq: Plugging into Photosynthesis”
Categories: Apps, Biology, Citizen Science, CitSci Research, Computers & Technology
By Carolyn Graybeal, Sep 30, 2013
Pictures, puzzles, and play. Citizen Sort is a collection of interactive games in which players sort and classify photos of unidentified animals. The project is the brain child of researchers at Syracuse University School of Information. The goal is to enable scientists to use pictures of wildlife from the web to help them study changes … Read more “Citizen Sort: Who is in that photo?”
Categories: Animals, Citizen Science, Gaming, Insects
By Carolyn Graybeal, Sep 05, 2013
This post is part of this week’s featured projects about water quality monitoring. Take a look! Clean water. We all need it. It is necessary for human health, food security, economic growth, and preservation of natural habitats. Sadly, human activity often threatens water quality. Tracking water quality is a crucial step is maintaining safe water. … Read more “Monitoring Water Quality”
Categories: Citizen Science
By Carolyn Graybeal, Jul 20, 2013
Calling all water monitoring groups! It is time for the annual Secchi Dip-In. From now until July 22, volunteer and professional water monitoring groups are being asked to take transparency measurements in a local body of water. A secchi disk is a common tool for measuring water turbidity, or water cloudiness. Turbidity is caused by … Read more “The Secchi Dip-In”
Categories: Citizen Science, Ecology & Environment, Geology & Earth Sciences, Nature & Outdoors, Ocean & Water
By Carolyn Graybeal, May 22, 2013
The American kestrel nesting season is in full swing! Found throughout the Americas, the American kestrel (Falco sparverius) is the smallest of the North American falcons. Unfortunately, its population is in decline particularly along the Pacific Coast and in New England. Much of the decline is due to land clearing which reduces the kestrel’s natural … Read more “Build a nestbox, help a kestrel.”
Categories: Birds
By Carolyn Graybeal, Apr 26, 2013
Source: https://www.nps.gov/jela/barataria-preserve.htm Each year since 1996, the National Geographic Society joins with the U.S. National Park Service to host one BioBlitz, and this year it will be held down on the bayou! On May 17th-18th citizen scientists will join field biologists to map and inventory the living creatures in the Big Easy’s Jean Lafitte National … Read more “Citizen Science visits New Orleans: a 24-hour BioBlitz”
Categories: Citizen Science
By Carolyn Graybeal, Mar 28, 2013
Public Lab has launched Spectral Challenge, a two-part crowd funded project to improve the use of open source spectrometers. A spectrometer is a common research tool which uses light to identify an unknown substance’s chemical composition. Last year, members of the PLOTS community successfully developed a versatile and user friendly $40 spectrometer. While more accessible, … Read more “Spectral Challenge: Public Lab launches a new project to improve open source technology”
Categories: Computers & Technology, Do-It-Yourself
By Carolyn Graybeal, Jan 14, 2013
Do you just “get” numbers? Or have they always left you a little baffled? Now you can test this observation and quantify your number sense. Number sense is our “gut knowledge” of numbers’ magnitude, their relationships, and even basic arithmetic. Number sense is thought to be innate, potently present as early as infancy. But while … Read more “Know your numbers”
Categories: Education
