Citizen Science

The citizen science model of collecting data, like we are employing with LoVoTECS, is growing in popularity. A large group with a solid organizational structure, organizers, and motivated partners can gather more information efficiently together than a small group of experts can. More scientists are recognizing this and building novel projects that answer important scientific questions. Here are links to some other examples and stories about citizen science. I hope you enjoy.

A writeup about a Hudson River group here.
A list of large-scale citizen science projects here.
A highly successful bird research group from Cornell here.

I will be speaking at the Japanese Geoscience Union about the LoVoTECS project on May 20th, focusing on the citizen science aspect for building our extensive hydrologic database. The session is on the new era of 'big data' - I hope to share our experiences collecting extensive data with a large group of partners. Stay tuned...

An Amazing Opportunity to Exchange Ideas

Cypress Trees
University of Tokyo Chiba Experimental Forest

Thanks to the Center for the Environment at PSU, I had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo to work with Mark on my thesis in January. Mark is there on a Fulbright Fellowship until July. While I was there, I gave a presentation on the LoVoTECS network. Citizen Science is a new concept of which many of the students and professors were not familiar. They had many questions about how the networked functioned and were "envious" about how much data we are able to collect through our network. So, I wanted to extend my gratitude in participating in such a novel study! Here are just a few of the highlight pictures!

Wonderfully fresh and adventurous Sushi!

 

Undergrad, Graduate, PhD and Post Doc Students
They were extremely welcoming, gracious and entertaining!