1. Introduction to Citizen Science
USA-NPN NCO
September 2016

2. What is citizen science?
Scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists
Also known as:
crowd science
crowd-sourced science
civic monitoring
volunteer monitoring
networked science
participatory monitoring/research
Citizen science is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists. It is known by many other names, including
crowd science
crowd-sourced science
civic monitoring
volunteer monitoring
networked science
participatory monitoring/research
Photo: Brian F Powell

3. History of citizen science
Known by other names throughout history Great increase in programs in the 1990s, with widespread use of the internet Term first entered into Oxford English Dictionary in 2014
Photo: Albert Herring, Wikimedia commons
Citizen science has been known by other names throughout history, as Native peoples first experimented with foods and medicines, amateur astronomers studied the sky, and hobbyists collected butterflies.
Invention of the internet has been a boon to citizen science. The term of citizen science was first entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014.

4. Early citizen scientists
 Photos: Thoreau Powell, images from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, Nina Leopold Bradley photo from Journal Sentinel files, Jefferson portrait by Rembrandt Peale
Jefferson
Thoreau
Here are a few examples of early citizen scientists who paid careful attention to phenological happenings. Their reasons for doing this varied from curiosity, to documentation of travels, to understanding how best to tend to one’s land.
Thomas Jefferson – kept detailed records of crops at his home in Monticello
Henry David Thoreau – kept detailed records of plant phenology at Walden pond
John Wesley Powell – explorer and soldier in the 1800s who mapped various geological features
Aldo Leopold and his daughter Nina Leopold Bradley kept detailed records at The Shack in Wisconsin of plant and animal phenology, including arrival times of migratory birds
Powell
Leopold-Bradley

5. The increasing prevalence of citizen science
Dramatic growth between 1997 to 2014 in publications featuring citizen science
Citizen science is becoming increasingly prevalent in the peer-reviewed literature. We can see a dramatic growth between 1997 and 2014 in the number of publications featuring citizen science.
Follet and Strezov 2015, PLoS ONE

6. The value of citizen science
The number of citizen science programs is also growing, providing an invaluable resource in the form of data collected.
The Christmas Bird Count, celebrated annually since 1900, one of the largest, longest-running citizen science programs, one of the largest ecological datasets available
Data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, created in the mid-twentieth century, have contributed to hundreds of peer-reviewed publications

7. The value of citizen science
We can learn a lot from data collected by citizen scientists, as shown in this graph depicting change in the center of bird abundance for 305 widespread species over the last 50 years. These data were collected by citizen scientists through Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count. We can see that the center of abundance has changed drastically in terms of the average number of miles moved north over the last 50 years.
This figure shows annual change in latitude of the center of bird abundance for 305 widespread bird species in North America from 1966 to Each winter is represented by the year in which it began (for example, winter 2013–2014 is shown as 2013). The shaded band shows the likely range of values, based on the number of measurements collected and the precision of the methods used.
Data source: National Audubon Society, 2014

8. The value of citizen science
Significance of citizen science to research greater than perceived
“Quality of data collected by volunteers, on a project-by-project basis, has generally been found as reliable as the data collected by professionals"
Yet the significance of citizen science to research is greatly underestimated. In a study published in Plos One in 2014, researchers evaluated a review of 10 claims of impacts of climate change on avian migration. They found no reference to “citizen science” in any of these publications, although citizen science actually contributed to 24-77% of references.
They stated that the “Quality of data collected by volunteers, on a project-by-project basis, has generally been found as reliable as the data collected by professionals.”
Photo: Brian F Powell
Cooper et al 2014, PLoS ONE

9. The value of citizen science
Volunteers contribute ~$2.5B annually to biodiversity research
Authors of one research study estimate that volunteers contribute over 2 and a half billion dollars annually to biodiversity research.
Photo: Brian F Powell
Theobald et al 2015, Biological Conservation

10. The value of citizen science
Flowering plants
7 day average
 Photos: Brian F Powell, Thoreau image from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, Nina Leopold Bradley photo from Journal Sentinel files
2012. Primack, R. B, Miller-Rushing, A.J
And what about the data from our early citizen scientists? Thoreau’s observations of flowering plants that he recorded in his journals have been compared to the same species at Walden pond in recent years. They found that, on average, species are flowering about 7 days earlier than they did in his time. There are a number of reasons for this, including the potential influence of the urban heat island in proximity to Walden Pond. However, the important thing to note is that without his valuable dataset, we would not have information about what happened in the past. Here is a summary of that research:
The second study conducted by researchers including Nina Leopold Bradley, one of Aldo Leopold’s daughters, demonstrates that the records her family has been keeping indicate the earlier arrival of some species to their farm in Wisconsin. Again, it is important to note that the exact reason for the earlier arrivals is not quite clear. The real value is having such detailed records to draw upon. Here is some more information about Bradley’s work: and a useful video that can be shown to your class:
Sandhill crane and geese
2-3 week average
61 years
1999. Bradley, N.L., Leopold, C.A., Ross, J., Huffacker, W.

11. Join us! Photo: Brian F Powell
You too can become a citizen scientist. Join us in collecting phenology observations through Nature’s Notebook, and become part of the USA National Phenology Network.
Photo: Brian F Powell

12. Contact nco@usanpn.org
Questions?
Contact
USA-NPN NCO
September 2016