Citizen Science

It's summer and there's a whole lot of pollinating going on. Learn about scientists' efforts to monitor important pollinators like bumblebees, monarch butterflies and hummingbirds, and how you can help.

Projects featured in this podcast are:

Bumble Bee Watch

Journey North

Monarch Larva Monitoring Project

Summertime blues? Not on our watch! In this Summer Fun podcast, learn how you can plate and serve an ant picnic fit for a queen; use spider webs as air quality monitors; and help make cities around the world more accessible by strolling their sidewalks (virtually), looking for cracks, potholes, and missing curb cuts that could stop a wheelchair, stroller or walker in its tracks.

Projects and websites featured in this podcast are:

Ant Picnic

Discover Ants

Project Sidewalk

Spidey Senser

Yes, Benjamin Franklin was a founding father of the United States, helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was the first Postmaster General. But he was also an energetic citizen scientist (even though the word "scientist" didn't yet exist). He studied electricity, the Gulf Stream, refrigeration and meteorology, and he published his research. He even conducted experiments on using electricity to cook turkeys! Michael Madeja is Director of Education at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, a society founded by Franklin himself. In this special "minisode" of the SciStarter podcast, Madeja discusses some of Franklin's achievements and corrects some misconceptions about one of America's founding "citizen scientists."

It's spring, and the birds are back in town, so we're dedicating this episode of the SciStarter podcast to our avian neighbors. Get a peak into the secret world of woodpeckers, monitor the effects of climate change on birds, and learn how even city-dwellers can participate in bird research.

Projects and websites featured in this podcast are:

Woodpecker Cavity Cam

Audubon's Climate Watch

Celebrate Urban Birds

Burst out of your winter hibernation and into some exciting springtime citizen science fun with this special, pre-Citizen Science Month podcast. Learn about Nature's Notebook and ISeeChange, and get the latest on CitSci library kits that you and your family can borrow.

Projects and websites featured in this podcast are:

SciStarter Library Network

SciStarter Event Calendar

Foundations of Citizen Science Learning Module

SciStarter Citizen Science Month

Globe at Night

Nature's Notebook

ISeeChange

By donating your time, energy and, for one project, a saliva and blood sample, you can help researchers make life-saving medical discoveries. In this episode, we focus on three of the many health-related citizen science projects in the SciStarter database.

Projects and websites featured in this podcast are:

National Library of Medicine/ All of Us

Mobile Health and Movement Assessment

Outbreaks Near Me (formerly, COVID Near You)

In this episode of Citizen Science, we learn about citizen science projects sponsored by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We speak with NOAA staff in charge of sharing their vast data sets with the public, managing meteorological data, and running their program on earth magnetism.  

Projects featured in this podcast are:

CoCoRaHS

CrowdMag

Find citizen science projects supported by your local science center or museum at SciStarter.org/NOAA

In this episode of Citizen Science, we share stories from citizen science volunteers about how they share citizen science with others, and about how they got involved in citizen science themselves. We speak with a school teacher in Texas, an astrophysics graduate student in India, a Girl Scout troop leader in Virginia and a college professor in Upstate New York.

 

Projects discussed in this podcast:

 

iNaturalist

Ant Picnic

Globe at Night

Disk Detective

Clean Water Hub

 

Download a transcript of the episode.

As a citizen scientist, you can help researchers explore the causes, effects and potential responses to global climate change and other environmental issues. And you can do it from home or out in the field! In this episode of Citizen Science: Stories of Science We Can Do Together, we explore six projects coming at the issue from six very different angles.  Discover these and many other climate change-focused and environment-related citizen science volunteer opportunities through the SciStarter Project Finder!

Projects featured in this podcast episode include:

Caroline Nickerson’s Miss Louisiana Earth featured projects

Climate Change in Scripted Media

OSDG Community Platform

Climate History Australia

Urban Buzz

Ghosts of the Coast

Ripple Effects via the Citizen Science, Civics and Resilient Communities program supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Find other NOAA-supported citizen science pages hosted by science centers and museums on SciStarter.

The article by Max Cawley (of the Museum of Life + Science in Durham, North Carolina) that Caroline mentions in the episode intro is on the SciStarter Blog.

Transcript for this episode coming soon on the SciStarter Podcast page.

We found the song of the summer! The "Citizen Scientist Song" was written and recorded by Monty Harper for SciStarter.org. You can find Monty on Twitter @montyharper and his website is www.montyharper.com. 

Enjoy!