Commentt Citizen science
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ccording to Wikipedia, the term “citizen science” refers to a program in which a network of volun teers, many of whom have little or no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks, such as observation, measurement, or computa tion. The most famous and longest-running example is the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count established in 1900. It’s a fascinating look at what citizens working together can accomplish—check it out at www.audubon. org/bird/cbc. The Christmas Bird Count has been a primary source of data for peer-reviewed research articles and for as sessing the migration and decline of species in North America. In 2006, exactly 57,156 participants observed 61,579,355 birds from December 14 until January 5, in cluding a surprising number of snowy owls on the move and a declining number of evening grosbeaks. You can plot trends of any species at any location for 106 years using the Audubon website. Imagine—all that data with out any research costs or graduate student stipends. Probably the second most famous example of citizen science is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but I don’t consider it in the same category as the Christmas Bird Count because SETI participants simply loan their computers’ central processing units and do not otherwise participate in gathering or interpreting the data. Still, there are 3 million participants—a remark able volunteer program by any measure. Perhaps the citizen science project that most closely relates to the content of ES&T is the World Water Moni toring Day (WWMD), sponsored by the Water Environ ment Federation. It began in 2002 as an international outreach program that builds public awareness and in volvement in protecting water resources. Streams, riv ers, lakes, and estuaries are monitored in 50 countries throughout the world by more than 80,000 participants for dissolved oxygen, transparency, temperature, and pH. To join, you simply need to register your site, pur chase a rudimentary test kit for about $20, monitor a wa ter body during the test period of September 18 through October 18, and enter the results into the website at www.worldwatermonitoringday.org. Here’s what I find so powerful and exciting about citi zen science: you can make observations at unlimited lo cations that would not otherwise be practicable, while at the same time building public support for the envi ronment, and educating and encouraging thousands of new students toward a rewarding career in the environ mental sciences. Of course, there are limitations to such democratic data. Naysayers might chide, “The data are of poor quality, they cannot be trusted; they could be mis © 2007 American Chemical Society
leading or even dangerous; and they are certainly not admissible in court.” To them I say, “Phooey.” (I’m from Iowa and that’s pretty strong sentiment for us.) First of all, the data are what they are. No more, no less. They should be handled, interpreted, and used in an appropriate fashion for how they were obtained. One can take care to educate citizen scientists in how to take proper samples and about the phenomena underlying the measurement. If resources permit, one can obtain state-of-the-art measurements by using the latest sen sor technology. There is a sizable literature which attests that data collected by properly trained citizen volunteers are of as high a quality as those obtained by profession als with the same equipment. I have a dream that tomorrow at noon schoolchildren volunteers in every country walk to the creek, stream, lake, or drinking-water source nearest to their homes and record a scientific observation—they measure the temperature, clarity, pH, or dissolved oxygen at their site. They file their data report via the Internet, and the next day they collectively create a map of the world’s water quality. Hopefully, they think about the science behind the result and vow to improve the environment where needed. These volunteers would constitute a network of “water watchdogs” for the entire planet—geopolitics is transcended by such endeavors. Certain scientific tasks are ideally suited for citizen science—any type of macroscopic census or collective experience that can be observed easily or cheaply. We don’t need an expensive microscope or telescope—but rather a macroscope composed of millions of subjects observing their own environment. With cell phones they could record a brief audio file and phone it in. Imagine millions of citizen volunteers recording the sounds out side their front door . . . for a century. The human con dition is somehow defined by the sounds we hear (and make) each day. Or the sights we see, like counting the ants in the school yard, or identifying the flowers, or re cording the smiles and the frowns of people passing by. Just think of the myriad of activities that orchestrate the ensemble of our human experience. It’s a rich world, and we need our citizens’ help and support if the environ ment is to be sustained.
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
[email protected] Sep tember 1, 2007 / Environmental Science & Technology n 5923
