I have an azalea in my backyard I have let go wild. The birds love it even if the landscaper does not. At peak bloom, the color from the hundreds of blossoms is so intense, it gives my den a beautiful pink aura. I have been in this house for about 20 years, and it seems to me that these few days of pink bliss are happening earlier in the spring than they used to. I garden for relaxation, so I do not follow my work practices of documenting, cataloging and writing things down. Without that documentation, I cannot say with certainty that it is reaching peak bloom earlier. But there are everyday folks who do document these things, and they are not just the professional scientists.
BudBurst is a nationwide program where anyone can share this kind of information from their local area. Specifically, individuals contribute phenological data, dates of seasonal or cyclic natural phenomenon like flowering times for plants, egg laying by frogs or even harvest dates for wine grapes to the program’s database! BudBurst is what’s known as a citizen scientist program: individuals contributing data about nature so that collectively we know more about our world and our impacts on it.
Bird count started in 1900
One of the most successful and long-running citizen science programs is Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count. Started in 1900 as an effort to draw attention to declining bird populations, individuals count the birds they see on a single day during the winter and share those data with Audubon, now through a web portal rather than mailed in datasheets! With more than a century of information, the data allow us to draw conclusions about changes in populations of species or changes in their range (where those species are found).
These data have also been instrumental in determining what North American bird species are being affected by environmental changes. If you took the CBC approach, expanded it year-round, as well as internationally and put it on a mobile device, you have ebird, a more recent, but very successful (300 million observations and counting!) citizen science program. iNaturalist is another example of a popular and expanding citizen science program.
Citizen science collects more data
The amount of data provided by citizen science programs is leaps and bounds greater than that which could be gained by individual scientists working in the field full time. More data allows for more robust conclusions and greater understanding of our world, but citizen science programs have other benefits. These programs can give individuals insight into the scientific process allowing them a greater understanding of how science affects their health, safety and happiness.
Through training and participation, citizen science programs share knowledge and teach skills, opening up the practice of science to all regardless of prior background, a democratization of science if you will. And as citizen science programs engage individuals in learning more about their local natural environment, giving them a greater connection to the environment, enhanced feelings of stewardship, and, in many cases, an increasing awareness of human impacts on their local ecosystems result.
Citizen science projects can also result in putting information to work. For example, ebird data have been used to help address the “knowledge to action” gap in conservation projects with more than 100 documented cases of projects using ebird data to develop, direct or implement those projects more efficiently.
CAMEO is new program at DISL
The Dauphin Island Sea Lab has a new citizen science program we have titled CAMEO. CAMEO stands for Citizen’s Archive for Mobile Bay Estuarine Organisms and, as you might imagine, is focused on animals living in Mobile Bay. Volunteers participate in one or more of the hundred plus educational trawling trips for schools and students offered through DISL’s Discovery Hall education program each year, collecting and entering data about the presence and abundance of a list of specific species of fish and invertebrates collected during trawls.
The list was developed with the guidance of DISL’s fisheries scientists and reflects species that we have only anecdotal evidence for changes in populations, as well as species that show up in the bay seasonally, typically during a specific life style stage.
While we have gotten off to a slow start due to COVID-19, one of the advantages we hope results from the CAMEO program is the higher resolution “picture” of the bay’s fishes and larger pelagic invertebrates. Much like a higher resolution TV produces a better, clearer picture, this more frequent sampling (~100+ boat trips per year compared to, for example, the 12 samples taken through monthly monitoring) will produce a better understanding of changes in fish and invertebrate populations over time.
Training set for March 23
CAMEO is funded by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. DISL very much appreciates their support of this program. For more information about CAMEO or to register to attend our next information and training session from 6-9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23, please go to the project website.
There are now literally hundreds of citizen science programs and many are focused on marine areas and coastal and ocean issues. There are programs for all ages, programs that require little training to ones with stringent certifications, programs one can participate in from a computer to ones that are more active. There are websites that catalog programs and journals that publish papers relating to citizen science, but at their core, all of them are dependent on the volunteers who collect and/or process data as part of a scientific investigation.
We thank all citizen scientists for their time and effort and especially thank our volunteers who have earned their CAMEO!
Meet the author
Tina Miller-Way, Ph.D.
Assistant Director for Education
Tina Miller-Way serves as the assistant director for education for the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) and is a former chair of the national Sea Grant Education Network. She has... Read more
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