Citizen Science

[Meanderthal]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Hi Meanderthal. I have participated in the first example here. The MPA program was called LiMPETS and was run through the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. It's geared toward students as the citizen scientists. I have also dived/ID'd fish with the REEF program off the Socorros and Florida, which I think is connected to (or at least the same concept as) Reef Check in CA. Bioblitz is one I've never participated in because always doing something else that weekend, but it reminds me of Coastal Cleanup day, which collects a lot of data on marine/coastal debris.

For Prince William Sound, you might want to check if anyone is supporting citizen science work in ocean acidification. Although without the instruments to measure, this might be hard to collect the relevant data. Salinity and temperature measurements might be of interest to local University researchers, but the instrumentation again might be an issue. Grad students could be a great resource to inquire on this.

Just curious. Is your husband's name Bill? If so, do you recall us meeting a long time ago in the Gulf of Mexico? Either way, I've been enjoying your posts. Your writing is really powerful.

Wow, thank you! No, and if you'd met us in Mexico, it would have been with us in a 4x4 chinook poptop camper :-).

Doesn't preclude meeti g up in the future, though.

[Mike OReilly]

SciStarter
Big searchable database of active citizen science projects

Wikipedia list of citizen science projects

Coastbuster
You can help keep our West Coast clean and safe by reporting marine debris via Coastbuster for iPhone and Android. Use this app to report large, unusual and potentially hazardous marine debris—especially items that may have been swept into the sea by Japan’s devastating March 2011 tsunami.

Government of Canada compilation

Ontario Nature database

Newfoundland Nature
NLNature is an online atlas of wildlife in Newfoundland and Labrador based on observations by residents and tourists. We welcome any sighting of plants, animals, and other things (e.g., interesting rocks, landmarks) in Newfoundland and Labrador.

List of active research projects at Memorial University (NL)

[pskudlarski]

Check out Matt Rutherford site at Ocean Research Project
he talked about his research projects on Andy Schell On The Wind Podcast, and is involved in the FISH FINDER project where you would have a detection device that help tracking fish movement all over the world.

[TonyBe]

I just wanted to say thank you for starting this thread. I really had no idea that all of this sort of stuff was going on.

The examples from everyone here has really got me enthused to get involved as well.

[belizesailor]

Cool stuff. Thanks for the info. Definately something that interests me.

[Meanderthal]

I really want to see this thread expand. If I'm honest, I want to see Cruiser's Forum add a new subcategory specifically for Marine Science/Citizen Science at some point!

In support--I'll keep posting updates and hope anyone who reads this thread does as well, and between us, collate/vet/report on our success or failures.

Seaworthy Lass did something similar with her astonishing recipes thread.

[Meanderthal]

Citizen Science APPS
Marine Debris Secchi Disk
Crowdwater
NASA GLOBE Cloud App
Ebird
iNaturalist

I second comments about visiting SciStarter. 550 citizen science projects of varying levels of relevance, without needing to hunt down nearby organizations. Great recommendation!

I think most of us stay close to shore 90% of the time, so we can include projects involving shorelines and places we'd be hiking and exploring anyways.

[Meanderthal]

Update: Two Week Countdown to Leaving

So it turns out trying to get involved in citizen science is a rabbit hole straight to Wonderland. I'm kinda obsessed. My notes in Evernote should probably be split out into a notebook instead, at this point, and the draft citizen science summary post for Turtle Travels needs to be split out and shortened too.

I wish I had started earlier--if CS is something you are interested in, you may want to block out a month just for you to burn through the all-encompassing enthusiasm phase. Then another month to get ahold of scientists during spring slump, or reduce your initial monster of a list down to say, a manageable five tasks. Oops.

Way to further alarm your husband with the length of the do-list, Meanderthal

I can't explain why, but exploring the coastlines, remote anchorages, water, etc through the lenses of observation and data collection enriches the experience for me. I SEE more, I learn, I understand more.

Layering that over my hunting/fishing/gathering/cooking/eating proclivities...

I love my life. (Makes me better at seeing those early mushrooms for the dinner table too)

Anyways, for those of us (99%) who explore coastlines far more than we cross oceans--- The US National Phenology Network has a call out for citizen scientists. Phenology not Phrenology :-). There is an app for this for Android and Iphone: Nature's Notebook.

Also, here's a thread back from 2013 regarding the Secchi Disk

[GordMay]

A research project, that lets the public participate in the search for intelligent alien life, is going into ‘hibernation’, after 21 years.
That's because the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at Home (SETI@home) project has collected a massive amount of data over the last two decades — and now it's time to get to work analyzing it.
➥ https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

If you're currently running SETI@home on your computer, we encourage you to attach to other BOINC-based projects as well. Or use Science United and sign up to do astronomy.

BOINC is used by many volunteer computing projects. Some are based at universities and research labs, others are run by private groups or individuals. You can participate in any number of these projects.
➥ https://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

Science United lets you help scientific research projects by giving them computing power. These projects do research in astronomy, physics, biomedicine, mathematics, and environmental science
➥ https://scienceunited.org/

[slug]

Originally Posted by Meanderthal

Husband and I are going to be out and about in Prince William Sound, AK, for a few months.

We've communicated with several institutions in order to arrange some citizen science work--mostly recording observations, a few scenarios for sample collection and preservation, posting to the organizations' social media when possible, et cetera. I've got a pretty good science background, and my husband is smart and increasingly interested/enthusiastic as I've shown him what we'd be doing 😍.

Has anyone else participated in citizen science work, and what was it?

S

Perhaps best to create your own observation recording program

Then submit these observations to interested parties

For instance ....yachts disregard forestry conservation advice and tie dock lines directly to trees ashore

These lines damage and kill the tree

In many popular anchorages most of the shore line trees are damaged or dead

Your observations could leed to banning of this line to tree nonsense

In many regions this practice has been made illegal