On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck offshore Japan with a magnitude of 9.0. As the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan, it triggered a tsunami and caused a subsequent meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Following the nuclear accident, there was a lack of accurate, transparent information for the public to understand the area’s environmental radiation. In response, Safecast was swiftly formed in order to monitor and collect transparent environmental data. As of today, Safecast is a global non-profit organization of amateur scientists volunteering to collect and provide accessible data for the organization. These amateur scientists, known as citizen scientists, are provided with the tools necessary to gather and share accurate environmental data and are encouraged to embrace open-source and open-data methods to their research. Safecast has since allowed people to easily monitor their homes and environment using the credible data collected in the name of citizen science. And in recent months with the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in citizen science participation has allowed the discovery of more data on projects similar to Safecast.
According to the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016, citizen science is a method of open collaboration that calls for individuals or organizations to voluntarily participate in scientific research. Amateur, volunteer-based scientists are given the opportunity to help form hypotheses, conduct scientific experiments, collect and interpret data, make discoveries, and solve some of science’s most challenging problems.
Although the term “citizen science” is a fairly new term, the concept isn’t. Leading up to the 20th century, scientists were generally independent in practice. Some scientists, including Charles Darwin, called upon observers across the country to participate in their research, whether it be through stargazing or birdwatching. In contrast, modern scientists typically bear a degree and work for academic institutions or corporations. After the passing of the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act in 2016, citizen science has begun to regain its popularity as organizations and federal agencies participate in crowdsourcing, which is the act of calling upon a large number of volunteers to collectively participate in a project. An early example includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program (COOP), which was established in 1890 and continues to nationally recruit volunteers to collect and report data for forecast models to this day.
Citizen science has made a large impact in areas of research like biology, ecology, and astronomy. For example, as NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope planned to retire in January of 2020, citizen scientists raced to identify and map as many brown dwarfs as possible (brown dwarfs are celestial bodies that are too big to be considered planets but too small to be considered stars). This NASA-funded project named Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 included both professional and volunteer citizen scientists and to this date, has created the most complete 3D map of the many brown dwarfs that neighbor our solar system.
Beyond the occasional breakthrough discovery, this practice of collaboration in scientific research has proven to have many other benefits. The Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016 also mentions that citizen science would be able to accelerate scientific innovation by increasing cost effectiveness, addressing societal needs through public participation, providing hands-on learning experiences, and connecting people to a network of science agency projects. This can be done because citizen science allows scientists to distribute tasks that would otherwise be too costly or time-consuming to do without the help of volunteers. Citizen science projects can also address education and outreach goals by providing people with exposure to the scientific process.
Beyond its more direct benefits, citizen science can also implicitly help counter science skepticism among the public by providing more transparency in data. Franck Marchis, a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute scientist and co-founder of Unistellar, explained that in “a time when public trust in experts has declined precipitously, some scientists are arguing that a more collaborative research model can help counter science skepticism. And governments are increasingly realizing that it may be worth investing in citizen science — not only to accelerate scientific research, but also to boost trust in it.”
Safecast has also made transparency a priority. As a response to the lack of publicly available and trustworthy data following the nuclear accident in 2011, the organization has made their stance on openness and trustworthy data very clear. In an effort to demonstrate this, the company installed a “Solarcast Nano”, a solar-powered real-time radiation monitor only 2 km from Fukushima No.1, making this the closest, independent real-time data-monitoring point for the plant that can provide data to the public. The company has also publicly disclosed their “data processing methodology” on their website to show how the data is collected, processed, and visualized.
Citizen science has proven to enhance science innovation; however, it isn’t necessarily perfect either. In a 2008 report published by the U.S. National Park Service, Brett Amy Thelen and Rachel K. Thiet demonstrate concerns about citizen science, since some projects may not be suitable for untrained volunteers, such as those that engage in complex research techniques. Also, due to the lack of training, it’s possible for volunteers to introduce bias into the data they collect.
However, organizations that run citizen science tend to go to great lengths to ensure quality data. Typically, project leaders provide training and supporting resources to citizen scientists and provide opportunities for other scientists to flag inconsistent reports. For example, organizations like eBird and eButterfly use expert reviewers to evaluate and verify reports submitted by volunteers. And according to a 2018 analysis, data collected by volunteers and scientists were consistent with one another 96% of the time.
Sometimes, amateur scientists themselves may not be the cause of inaccurate data, but rather the amateur equipment that they use. For example, Marcelino Alvarez of Safecast admitted to Public Radio International that there could definitely be inaccuracies to crowd-sourced data or even contamination to certain Geiger counters, which are widely-used radiation-detection devices, that can provide inaccurate data. However, he is hopeful that the majority of reliable data collected can eliminate the few outliers.
Citizen science has been especially popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier in January of 2021, Sigal Samuel, who is a citizen scientist for SETI, wrote an article on vox.com detailing the significant increase of citizen science activity during the pandemic.
“Stuck at home with time on their hands, millions of amateurs around the world are gathering information on everything from birds to plants to Covid-19 at the request of institutional researchers. And while quarantine is mostly a nightmare for us, it’s been a great acceleration for science.”
According to citizen science project-hub Zooniverse, participants have recently contributed more than 5 million classifications of images in one week, which is equivalent to about 48 years of research. Samuel suggests that this increase in citizen science during the nation’s quarantine was probably due to the isolation and extra time at home for people who needed a new hobby. Laura Trouille, Vice President of Citizen Science at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and co-lead of Zooniverse, explained that “[p]eople are just really needing to connect in meaningful ways. Welcoming online communities provide a wonderful outlet for that.”
Despite the pandemic, a gradual rise in citizen science can also be attributed to the advancing technology that allows people to conduct research from home. According to National Geographic, the widespread use of the Internet has made it easier for people to share and contribute information. Furthermore, the development of smartphones has allowed people to share information wherever they are, whether it be in their backyard or in the ocean. Videos and other digital media taken from smartphones can now be used to accompany data, along with information from built-in GPS receivers.
In the future, technology could make smart sensors more accessible to the public, making it even easier to record environmental data like air quality and temperature. Artificial intelligence could also be used to make data collection and interpretation more efficient. However, according to Trouille, “[p]art of what the humans are doing that the AI will never be able to do is to identify the unusual or the weird.” Therefore, it is likely that despite technological advancements, citizen scientists will be here to stay for a while.
To learn more about how you could get involved in citizen science, check out the following resources:
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