Citizen science engages those who would otherwise not usually take part in the scientific process. By participating in science, citizen scientists not only gain facts or knowledge, but more importantly a new way of looking at the world. This scientific literacy, and the critical thinking that comes with it, allow us to engage more fully as citizens and in the democratic process. The eminent astrophysicist and science educator Neil Degrasse Tyson explained this very well in an interview [1]:


Neil DeGrasse Tyson on scientific literacy, video by KCTS 9 from YouTube, and archived at the Internet Archive, fair use

By creatively incorporating open science processes and outputs into your citizen science project, you can diversify the ways for civic engagement by participants.

The journey from volunteering, citizen science, to civic engagement and effecting policy change is exemplified by the story of Mr Roland Ascroft [2]. Intrigued by a chance to discover what wildlife lives around his home in north-east England, Roland joined the MammalWeb citizen science project to set up a motion-sensing “camera trap” in the nearby woods. Encouraged by the photo of a roe deer, Roland eventually set up dozens of cameras to comprehensively survey the entire area. Roland’s dataset of the unexpectedly rich array of wildlife inspired the Durham county council to propose a local nature reserve. Today, Roland organises camera trap wildlife surveys in other regions, such as in Scotland to track the spread of invasive grey squirrels.

Roland’s story is just one example of citizen science and civic engagement. One of the great societal benefits of citizen science is broadening involvement in the scientific process by involving a diverse group of participants in an equitable and inclusive way. In this sense, citizen science embodies the principles of open science processes from the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

The rest of this section will explore a few more examples of citizen science projects which operationalise open science processes. We will examine their impact and see how open science outputs and processes enable and complement each other.

References

1. LaCombe, D., 2009. Interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson. In Conversations at KCTS 9. KCTS. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrTTta55i5Q&t=1494s and https://youtu.be/5gK2EEwzjPQ?t=53

2. McKie, R., 2019. How an army of ‘citizen scientists’ is helping save our most elusive animals. The Guardian. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/28/britain-elusive-animals-fall-into-camera-trap-citizen-scientist

Last modified: Wednesday, 20 October 2021, 3:34 PM