YOUR ORGANIZATION IS:
A nonprofit organization, public or private body dedicated to research and science popularization.
YOUR CAUSE IS:
Advancing knowledge through the use of new technologies, open data sharing and citizen science.
Suggested Microvolunteering Actions for Citizen Science
CREATE
write an e-dictionary or Wikipedia entry for a scientific term
create a visual to help explain an abstract concept: *drawing, *video, *comic, *meme
submit a photo or video of scientific interest: *nature& wildlife, *anthropology, *art& architecture.
come up with an idea for an original scientific experiment to be carried out in the classroom
SHARE
popularize science topics in your network
share your “citizen science” experience to inspire others to participate
share open source scientific material: *scanned books and articles, *databases &free software, *recorded TV/radio programs
ORGANIZE
play serious games to help scientists solve real research questions
test and review a new device or app
respond to a scientific survey
review a science-themed book, movie or academic article
help tag and organize large data archives
analyze signals and patterns recorded by scientific instruments
translate 1 page of scientific text into another language
help a STEM student with their homework
LOCALIZE
map places of interest for researchers
help monitor a wildlife area through web-cam
report the occurrence of certain scientific-interest phenomena in your area
collect samples of water, soil, rock or flora
help with species identification
report sick or dead wildlife cases
monitor severe weather events
help report pollution and toxicity levels in your community
Ideas, trends and experiments:
Crowd-powered citizen science.
Life Sciences and the Environment.
Volunteers can help monitor weather and climate change, water, air and soil quality, pollution, environmental damage and wildlife in their communities.
Each volunteer could be assigned a small local area to watch for: a park, a river segment, a part of a forest, a city sector, etc. The reports should be easy to fill in and quick to submit.
Space research.
Space research is not just “rocket science”, but also a matter of time and patience in sorting through large amounts of data. Microvolunteers can look for stardust, try comet hunting, help identify gravitational waves or search for new planets.
Chemistry, Biology, Medicine.
Digital citizen science projects in the area of Life Sciences benefit a lot from gamification. Whether AI training, running a simulation or doing tasks for which human intelligence surpasses computers, the results do help scientists get a more complete picture of their raw data. Who knew mapping the human brain can actually be fun!
Community level.
Citizen science doesn’t necessary need to go big. One can also organize a micro local event such as a *debate evening, *documentary screening, *school talk, *interactive experiment or *science popularization webinar.
