chaP tEr 1 Why Citizen Science Is Needed The world is always changing So are the plants animals weather water and land of our planet Figuring out why things change is important for lots of people from farmers and sailors to professors and researchers Imagine these three problems in nature Problem 1 A scientist at a local university wants to know on what date crocus flowers bloom all over North America Many people say that when crocuses bloom it’s a sign that spring has really arrived The scientist would like to know if this is true or just a saying She and her small team could drive around every town in the United States looking for crocuses This would take years Because the crocus season is so short she could only collect 4 21st century skills library
While it might be fun to drive across the country looking for crocuses in bloom it would also be extremely expensive and time-consuming a little data or information each year It would also require a lot of money It costs a lot to travel across the country Maybe after a career of looking she would have a better sense of when and where crocuses bloom Isn’t there a way to get data about crocus blooms faster and at lower cost Problem 2 Bees are really important for agriculture They carry pollen from flower to flower This allows the plants to reproduce But the bee population has been way down for the past few years A farmer wants to know if planting more 5 Data Geek
It’s not easy to collect data about animals that live in remote areas such as polar bears 6
honeysuckle a favorite plant of bees will raise the number of bees So he plants more honeysuckle but later he still counts fewer bees at his hive Was something wrong with his land The honeysuckle Something else He doesn’t know but he’s worried Problem 3 As our climate changes and the planet grows warmer polar bears are among the animal species being threatened A zoologist would like to know if these bears are changing their grooming habits as the temperature creeps upward She could camp out in the polar ice caps where the bears live and observe them day after day However then she would have to miss teaching at her university How can she learn about polar bear habits and still keep teaching In each of these situations problems could be solved faster if time money or scale weren’t an issue What if there was a way to get more people involved so the work could be done more rapidly What if those people were volunteers Each person would give a small amount of their time because they think that doing a little bit of science work is fun That’s what happens with citizen science projects Citizen science relies on ordinary interested citizen volunteers to help speed along scientific understanding Usually citizen 7777 Data Geek
