Eyes of the Reef Network is a project that encourages reporting of changes in the sensitive ecosystem of Hawaii’s reefs:
The Eyes of the Reef Network was developed to increase public awareness and engage communities in the monitoring and reporting of coral bleaching and disease, marine invasive species and Crown-of-Thorn Sea Star (COTS) outbreaks. The statewide network is the first tier of a rapid response protocol developed by the Division of Aquatic Resources and the Climate Change and Marine Disease Local Action Strategy, implemented by Reef Check Hawai‘i. The Eyes of the Reef network is comprised of regular reef users (including recreational users, tourism professionals, researchers, and fishers) who voluntarily monitor and report on conditions at reefs that they visit regularly.
The project is from Reef Check Hawaii, which organizes several ocean monitoring projects.
Science is increasingly being produced, discussed and deliberated with cooperative tools by web users and without the istitutionalized presence of scientists. “Popular science” or “Citizen science” are two of the traditional ways of defining science grassroots produced outside the walls of laboratories. But the internet has changed the way of collecting and organising the knowledge produced by people - peers - who do not belong to the established scientific community. In this issue we want to discuss:
- How web tools are changing and widening this way of participating in the production of scientific knowledge. Do this increase in participation consist in a real shift towards democratizing science or on the contrary is merely a rhetoric which do not affect the asymmetrical relationships between citizens and institutions?
- The ways in which both academic and private scientific institutions are appropriating this knowledge and its value. Do we need a new model to understand these ways of production and appropriation? Are they part of a deeper change in productive paradigms?
We would like to collect both theoretical contributions and research articles which address for example case studies in social media and science, peer production, the role of private firms in exploiting web arenas to collect scientific/medical data from their costumers, online social movements challenging communication incumbents, web tools for development.
Interested authors should submit an extended abstract of no more than 500 words (in English) to the issue editor by May 15, 2009. We will select three to five papers for inclusion in this special issue. Abstracts should be sent to the JCOM’s editorial office (jcom-eo@jcom.sissa.it) by email.
Sounds great - don’t forget that deadline of May 15!
Many citizen science projects seek to measure the health of native species in an ecosystem. But what about measuring the advance of an invasive exotic species? That’s exactly what the Global Garlic Mustard Field Survey aims to do.
Download the PDF on their site for a full description and instructions on participating in this project:
It is widely believed that invasive species are larger, reproduce more and reach higher
densities compared to their native ancestors. However, there are surprisingly few hard
data to support this claim, even for some of the most well?known invaders. One of the
most problematic invaders in North America is garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), yet
without good field data, important questions remain unanswered. Does garlic mustard
really grow larger and reproduce better in North American populations than in native
European populations? How much variation in performance is there among
populations within Europe and North America? Answers to questions like these will
ultimately lead to better understanding and management of invasive species.
Over the years, you’ll develop an interesting record of the birds seen in your yard on one weekend a month. Of course, if you’re interested in doing more than that, you can also use the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s related web site, eBird, and keep track your bird sightings all year round.
Anyone can do it, including kids, with parental permission. He suggested it as a school project.
“It’s a great way for a hands-on experiment, to collect and submit data,” Bell said.
The only real request is that volunteers use a four-inch-diameter, non-automatic rain gauge, in an attempt to keep the gathering as uniform as possible, Bell said.
Once signed up as a volunteer, the person can quickly submit information taken at 7 a.m. to the Website. Even “zero” amounts should be submitted, Bell said.
As well as the rainfall numbers, volunteers also can add details of the day. Some offer terse assessments and others are more poetic or hopeful about the weather in their corner of the community.
We’re helpnig Science Cheerleader with a survey to learn more about our readers.
In an effort to learn more about the fascinating and growing demography of people known as Citizen Scientists (you! water monitors, butterfly taggers, star gazers, weather trackers, bird watchers, etc), the following online survey has been created: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228PSD79C2S
Consider participating in the brief, online survey. The results will be shared with the directors of participating Citizen Science activities, including this one, and used to design an independent, full-functioning website specifically designed for citizen scientists and professional researchers.
The first question will ask how you heard of the survey….we’re second on the list, “CitizenScience Projects/CitizenSci.com”.
It’s just two pages long and the questions are quick to answer (and don’t worry, it doesn’t ask for any contact information or ask you to create an account).
We’re curious to see how CitizenSci.com readers respond. Thanks for taking the survey!
Here’s a piece from the New York Times blogs: A New Kind of Big Science by Aaron E. Hirsh, a Colorado biologist and writer.
And then there’s that problem of relating to Big Science when you’re standing outside the building, looking up. The difficulty is not just that the research is recondite, but that the work is institutional, as opposed to individual. After all, not many people really understood the paper on general relativity, but many did connect with Einstein. Sure, we all pitch in our tax dollars, but it’s hard to feel a whole lot of personal involvement in the search for the Higgs boson.
But if Big Science is what it takes to gather the truly precious data, what are we to do?
Hirsh describes some of the drawbacks of a centralized system of scientific inquiry, and how citizen science could be beneficial in extending the reach of science. He even makes a call for a national initiative in citizen science, saying, “It would provide us with timely data, and it would make us better citizens.”
I have to admit, the tone of that last sentence grates on me a bit. Do people see citizen scientists as people who are going out and performing a civic duty for no pay? That’s going to be a pretty hard sell. Still, Hirsh makes some good points and I’m delighted to see the topic getting more attention.
I’d like to invite Christmas Bird Count participants to add their photos to the Flickr pool we created last year. Photos of birds are great, but we also love photos of birders and some of the other sights from the day.
Here’s a slideshow of the photos in the pool so far:
Flickr is a photo sharing service from Yahoo! that I highly recommend. And any photo you add to the Christmas Bird Count group can also be added to the Citizen Science group!
Here’s an extremely promising online application for tracking health information of many types, particularly for people with conditions like diabetes, depression, cancer, and many, many others:
CureTogether is a place where patients and researchers work together, doing open research to find cures. Patients can start feeling better today by connecting, sharing resources, and tracking their health. It’s as private as you want it to be, it’s free, and the aggregate data is open so researchers around the world can collaborate on it. Together we can make discoveries and work toward ending suffering for millions of people living with chronic conditions.
We launched in July as a way to bring patients with 3 chronic conditions together to share their symptoms and treatments with each other and contribute their data to crowdsourced health research. It quickly expanded to 148 conditions, all suggested by members. It’s amazing to me to see people checking off symptoms and treatments they’ve experienced and tried, keeping daily Twitter-like logs of their health, and starting to track basic things like weight, sleep, caloric intake, and exercise.
You can bet I’m joining this project. It will be interesting to see if I can keep up with posting to it. Visit CureTogether.
Bird Atlases are important reference works that map the presence of bird species in greater detail than you’ll find on the maps in your field guide. They are necessarily local efforts. The San Diego Natural History Museum Bird Atlas has completed its data collection and initial publication phases…a massive effort by citizen scientists:
The project was an effort of epic proportions, guided by Curator of Birds and Mammals Phil Unitt, but depending on the enthusiastic participation of over 400 trained volunteers throughout the county, an extremely biodiverse area covering 4,200 square miles. These citizen scientists spent a total of over 55,000 hours searching for, observing, recording, and documenting San Diego County’s birds, represented by some 499 species altogether. The project spanned 6 years from 1997 to 2003, and the resulting voluminous body of information as summarized in the 645-page San Diego County Bird Atlas led Phil Unitt to state that “the birds of San Diego County are now among the best known in the world.” The Atlas has already provided critical information for conservation decisions made in the County, but much broader impacts are noted by one reviewer, who sees the area in regard to habitat conservation planning as a “robust microcosm of California and the entire nation.”
Eyes of the Reef Network is a project that encourages reporting of changes in the sensitive ecosystem of Hawaii’s reefs:
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