Image: Scientific American
These mobile tools help you become a citizen scientist, whether you’re documenting wildlife or measuring the effects of light pollution
Mobile applications for smartphones, tablets and other gadgets can turn just about anyone into a citizen scientist. App-equipped wireless devices give users worldwide the ability to act as remote sensors for all sorts of data as they go through their daily routines—whether it’s invasive garlic mustard weed in Washington State or red-bordered stinkbugs in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Smartphones can automate data collection and incorporate many important data-gathering functions—such as capturing images, audio and text—into a single tool that can “stamp” the date, time and geographic coordinates associated with an observation, says Alex Mayer, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Michigan Technological University. Mayer is leading a project with Michigan Tech colleague Robert Pastel, an associate professor of computer science, and a group of students to develop new citizen science mobile apps.
Their Cyber Citizens project, which began in 2011 with a grant from the National Science Foundation, is dedicated to producing mobile and Web-based tools each semester that help everyday people collect environmental information. The project enlists the efforts of Michigan Tech grad and undergrad students studying a number of different disciplines, including computer science, scientific and technical communication, and psychology. The students design the apps in collaboration with scientists at their university and elsewhere, including professional anthropologists, ecologists and ornithologists. Cyber Citizens has four apps in beta: Beach Health Monitor, Lichen AQ (Air Quality), Mushroom Mapper and Ethnographer. “All our mobile apps are for the Android platform, since it’s open, so developers have more freedom,” Pastel says.
The popularity of data gathering by lay people, greatly facilitated by the ease and convenience of mobile devices, has helped entire communities dedicated to citizen science form around efforts like Marine Debris Tracker and Project Noah. In addition, the Web site SciStarter lists more than 600 active citizen science projects around the world, one third of which are powered by mobile apps.
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Citizen scientists
- Chances of climate catastrophe are ignored, scientists say
Eleven scientists from around the world United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's authoritative climate science organization, to do a special science report on ...
- Students become scientists through SIUE’s STEM programs
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Center for STEM Research, Education, and Outreach is inspiring area middle and high school students to see themselves as scientists, to become critical ...
- Galactic 'gem' sparkles in dazzling new Hubble image aided by citizen scientists
The image depicts a galaxy merger, which occurs when two or more galaxies collide. An unusual galaxy merger boasts multiple interwoven arms in a newly released Hubble Space Telescope image. This ...
- How Citizen Science Helps NOAA Keep Tabs on Our Oceans
You can get involved with ocean research with NOAA, no matter whether you're on the water or dry land.
- EXTENSION CORNER: Citizen scientists can help protect Alabama's watersheds
The Alabama Watershed Stewards program is a science-based outreach from Extension and the Auburn University Water Resources Center.
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Citizen scientists
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Citizen science
- Citizen science at work in Mannering Park
A citizen science day to investigate the impacts of power stations thermal pollution on seagrass in Lake Macquarie will be held at Mannering Park on ...
- Galactic 'gem' sparkles in dazzling new Hubble image aided by citizen scientists
The image depicts a galaxy merger, which occurs when two or more galaxies collide. An unusual galaxy merger boasts multiple interwoven arms in a newly released Hubble Space Telescope image. This ...
- How Citizen Science Helps NOAA Keep Tabs on Our Oceans
You can get involved with ocean research with NOAA, no matter whether you're on the water or dry land.
- City of Cornwall welcomes citizen scientists at Biodiversity Workshops
That is the ultimate question being posed to young participants of the city-led Biodiversity Workshops happening this Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, city employees Angie Parker, Katherine Wells, ...
- Feature: Passion for whales takes Cape Town residents to citizen science
South African commercial pilot Alex Vogel looks for whales on the shore in Cape Town, South Africa on July 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Lyu Tianran) by Xinhua writer Lyu Tianran, Fred Barker ...
