Elizaveta Limanova Assignment 1 1. What is a Citizen Scientist? A citizen scientist is a member of the public who is capable of producing high-quality data through collaboration with experts and professionals in various scientific fields. Through this movement, the domains of science are open to the public. Some examples are counting clouds on photos of Mars and counting orca whales in photos. While some levels of participation may require more training, many of the tasks are very simple and easy for any individual to implement. Citizen science projects are becoming more and more common. Since applications with scientific data are available on personal computers, people who have an interest in astronomy, for example, can run simulations of planets and galaxies. However, there are many limitations to projects involving citizen scientists. One limitation is for people to be able to tell the difference between a scientific project and one that is not scientifically sound. 2. Who are Citizen Scientists? Citizen scientists are lay scientists who do not have a professional background in the area where they volunteer. Some citizen scientists are hobbyists. For example, they may be looking out into the sky with their telescopes and collecting data. They may be bird watchers or traveling enthusiasts. Another example is someone who is a hiker, boater, or construction worker as those individuals may be able to observe different phenomena from making observations in nature to meeting people from inaccessible locations. Another important fact to note is that citizen scientists are given a lot of direction and sometimes training in the area where they volunteer. 3. What institutions run citizen scientist projects? Some of the institutions that utilize work and data from citizen scientists include universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and corporations. In fact, they are included in all the domains where professional scientists work. The citizen scientists turn in their observations to the centralized institutions. Agencies of many nations recently pushed their grant holders to design programs that reach out to citizen scientists. 4. Why did this movement begin? The citizen scientist movement began when personal computers and the internet became more available in the 90s. In addition, smartphones recently became widespread and features like cameras and satellite navigation could be accessed by the masses. At present citizen science became even more popular because people are exchanging information about environmental concerns including global warming and decreasing animal populations. 5. Would you be interested in participating in this type of project? I would be interested in becoming involved in citizen scientist projects. I already participated in citizen scientist projects by tracing photographs of silicone chrystals to determine their relative organization. I am really interested in Foldit, a game where volunteers can fold proteins of the HIV virus. However, I can see that citizen scientist projects have a very important limitation which is accessibility. Some websites may be under construction, in the process of moving, and removed from the hosting servers. Although I was not able to find the puzzle on the internet as it appears to be under construction, I was able to read about the game. Since I love looking at organic molecules in 3D space and learning how they fit together, I feel like I would’ve really enjoyed this game. It is so inspiring that I would try building the molecules in 3D software. On the other hand, classifying galaxies or counting craters is also very interesting.
