MC Library Research Guides: Citizen Science: Home

What Is Citizen Science?

Citizen science, also referred to as community science, uses crowdsourcing to solve real-world problems by involving public participation in scientific research. While some citizen science projects require experience in a scientific discipline, the majority do not and can be contributed to by anyone. Citizen scientists contribute to projects by engaging in such activities as answering questions, taking pictures, cataloguing or analyzing images, transcribing historical documents, or playing computer games that measure perceptual processes.

Featured Resources

Article

How to Become a Citizen Scientist: A Beginner's Guide
From Discover magazine, March 7, 2022

Online platforms that host citizen science projects

Scistarter.org
SciStarter helps bring together millions of curious and concerned people in the world; the thousands of opportunities to engage in real-world research questions in collaboration with researchers, communities, organizations, and companies; and the resources, products, and services that enable people to pursue and enjoy these activities while learning and accelerating important research.
Zooniverse.org
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — more than a million people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications.

Videos

What Is Citizen Science?
From Scistarter.org
Citizen Science: Everybody Counts
By Caren Cooper, TEDx Talks

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