Citizen Science – How To Help Research From At Home On Your Sofa
The current COVID-19 pandemic has left students and young professionals unable to get out into the field and build up experience that is vital to gaining a career in wildlife. If you can’t get outside and do fieldwork, learn survey skills, and volunteer on practical conservation projects, Citizen Science could be a great option for you!
Illustration by Sarah Redman.
What is Citizen Science?
Traditionally, it was believed that “good science” could only be done in a laboratory by scientists wearing lab coats. As technology advances, this is becoming less and less true. Citizen Science is a term for scientific research that is conducted at least partly by non-professional scientists. This means that it can involve students, interns, and members of the public in data collection, processing, and analysis.
Although citizens have been participating in science for decades, Citizen Science has never been more important than it is now. With travel beginning to open up again, restarting the research that was forced to grind to a halt in the pandemic is proving to be a huge task. Involving the public in these projects means that more data can be collected, more quickly, and over a wider geographical area than if researchers were working alone. Involving the public in research also has the benefit of informing citizens of the scientific process and leading to better relationships between scientists and the public.
Benefits of Citizen Science
Volunteering in varied projects can be a great way to build or further develop skills that you may have touched on in your education but could use a bit more practice. These skills might include species identification from camera trap and photo ID projects, data entry and management, and even learning how to use different software – all valuable additions to the skills section of a CV. Perhaps most excitingly, Citizen Science projects can be a productive use of your spare time and provide you with the opportunity to volunteer in research projects all over the world without leaving your living room!
For those looking to build up their CV, Citizen Science is a great way to build experience with no entry requirements. If you’re tired of not being able to gain experience because you don’t have any to start with, Citizen Science is a great way to put in voluntary hours (and even gain internships!) for your CV. Some sites, such as SciStarter, will record the hours that you spend on each project and offer certificates that you can add to your CV or LinkedIn profile. Remember to check back in with the project once it has concluded as you can find the publications that you have contributed to.
Citizen Science in Daily Life
With the most simple Citizen Science projects only requiring an app on your mobile phone or access to a website, a quick and easy place to start can be recording the species that you see out on walks, in the garden, or even just out of the window. In fact, data from citizen recordings has been used to study a huge range of species from understanding echinoderms (marine invertebrates), to observing rare bumble bees, to re-defining the range of mudbugs, and, perhaps closer to home, identifying the impact of lockdown on bird observations.
General identification apps can be great places to start, supporting you to develop species ID across a range of taxa. iNaturalist is an app and website for recording observations which are then shared to data stores such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to be used in research. iRecord is an alternative to iNaturalist and is better linked to UK record centres, using UK grid reference systems and species dictionaries. If you’re looking to have more of a photography focus, Project Noah could be perfect for you. This is more of a fun and family-friendly app where you can share photography, keep “nature journals”, and take part in featured wildlife missions including Birds of The World, The Lost Ladybug Project, and Moths of The World.
Alternatively, you may be looking to develop your ID skills with specific taxa or species groups. BirdTrack is a joint project between the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), RSPB, and national ornithological societies and is great for the “lister”. This app uses GPS to let you record species at specific locations, allowing you to look back on the species that you have seen in the future and keep track. Mammal Mapper provides a bit of a variation on the standard species ID project by letting citizens record survey “effort” as well as species records. This is a very important feature to have as it allows scientists to distinguish between gaps in species records due to lack of sightings, or due to lack of effort which is vital for population monitoring. If you’re interested in getting involved in a different type of conservation research, iMapInvasives will help you to improve your invasive species identification using a GIS-based system to track invasive species and management actions against them. For now, iMapInvasives is mainly focused on the United States, however, the project is expanding and is hoping to cover a greater area soon.
For a more species-specific approach, Hedgehog Street provides a platform to record hedgehog sightings as well as learn more about tracks and signs, discover how to make a footprint tunnel to get perfect hedgehog footprints, and gain advice on how to help hedgehogs from your home.
Nationwide Projects
Long-running, year-round projects such as the BTO Garden Bird Watch have been running since 1995 and involve recording garden species each week. For more seasonal recording, you could volunteer with the BTO Nesting Neighbours project, locating nests around your garden and checking them periodically. If you’re looking for a more low-effort project, contribute an hour of your time in January to be a part of the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch (one of the largest garden wildlife Citizen Science projects).
Citizen Science From Your Sofa
Even if you can’t get out of the house, don’t have a garden, or would just rather spend your free time on the sofa: there are still hundreds of projects that you could get involved in! One of the main types of projects to volunteer on from home is camera trap identification. Mammal Web monitors mammals across the UK and Europe and is flexible in how citizens can get involved. You can deploy your own traps and post images, or identify species from other people’s camera traps. ZSL Instant Wild has a more global approach, allowing you to work on videos and images worldwide - even on footage live from the field!
If the “stay at home” regulations have you missing your library fix, transcription could be a great way for you to get involved in research. If you’re interested in historical data, check out Atlas Obscura to browse the archives, decipher handwriting, and tag images. If you’re more interested in improving accessibility by transcribing documents and biodiversity data, the Smithsonian has a range of volunteering opportunities. Or if you’re looking for something more simple, Distributed Proofreaders involves citizen scientists working on individual pages to contribute to transcribing public-domain books to ebooks.
Other projects such as Globe at Night allow you contribute to multiple fields of research. Citizens measure the brightness of the sky to increase understanding of light pollution and night visibility, providing data for astronomers and environmental scientists alike.
However, these aren’t the only types of projects that citizens can be involved in. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, or would like to browse the options, sites such as Zooniverse, National Geographic, and even NASA can have dozens, if not hundreds of projects to choose from.
Low-effort Options
No matter how much (or little!) effort you want to put in, there’s a Citizen Science project for you! For example, EyeWire runs as a human-based computation game, mapping the 3D structure of neurons in the brain, letting you compete against “EyeWirers” worldwide helping research, even in your downtime. If you don’t want to put in any effort at all, download the BOINC app on your computer to lend your spare processing power to help with complex scientific computation jobs in the background. The BOINC app can also run when your computer is idle so you can help scientific research even while you sleep!
With such a wide array of projects with a variety of topics and levels of effort required, there’s really no excuse not to get involved in Citizen Science. So the next time you have a bit of downtime, consider how you could be gaining experience, adding to your CV, and helping research right from your spot at the end of the sofa!
Thank you to Sarah Redman for her beautiful illustration. You can find more of her work on her Instagram @saraheredman.
Lizzie Upson
Lizzie is an MSc Biodiversity and Conservation graduate from the University of Exeter based in Yorkshire. She is particularly interested in ecology as well as the power of volunteering in conservation and environmental change. Lizzie is currently working on a few publications assessing population change in birds and is looking for more Citizen Science projects to build her experience.