Citizen Science: The Hidden Key To Saving The Planet

Auggie Wren places an old analog camera on a tripod and, at exactly the same time, every day, takes a single photograph. He then places the photographs in chronological order in an album, which thus became a kind of repository of urban diversity. Numerous faces, sometimes the same ones, of all those people who walked around the corner of the tobacco shop where Auggie worked.

The story doesn’t end there, as one discovers in that 1995 cinematic jewel that is Smoke: what Auggie’s story shows is that any citizen can contribute to science in a simple way. Imagine what Auggie’s photographic catalog could represent for an anthropologist who, in the future, decides to study the evolution of the inhabitants of a city.

Many citizens today do something similar to what Auggie does in the movie, but with a greater awareness of the contribution they make, helping science evolve through small actions. This is what is known as «citizen science», a way of contributing to scientific knowledge through collective, participatory and open research projects. And photography is one of the most popular tools for doing it.

One case closer to home here in Spain is the photographic ‘biomarathons’ organized by Iberozoa, a non-profit organization that, through activities linked to ecotourism or environmental education, helps students of Biology or Environmental Sciences find job opportunities. Participants in these biomarathons take photographs in certain natural environments, which can then be uploaded to apps that serve as biodiversity databases.

The iNaturalist and eBird global wildlife tracking project are two well-known examples of platforms that rely on citizen participation to feed their scientific projects focused on biodiversity.

Sounds, sights and social inclusion

This way of involving the civilian population in scientific progress began well before the internet, dating back to 1881, when the American ornithologist Wells Woodbridge Cooke decided to create a network of volunteer observers throughout his country to provide data on the migration and habits of different bird species.

And not only birds, but all kinds of animals and plants sighted by any citizen can today enrich the enormous bank of images and sounds that are gathered on the web platform and mobile application observation.org. This free tool allows users to record sightings of a wide variety of species, with a geolocation system that can locate the sightings on an interactive map.

Citizen science can also promote and encourage environmental education

The benefit to the understanding of local fauna and flora provided by this tool is beyond doubt. But beyond its contribution to researchers’ knowledge, citizen science can also promote and encourage environmental education, while working towards social inclusion.

A clear example is The Inclusive Circular Lab educational project, managed by the Juan XXIII Foundation in Spain. This project, led by people with intellectual disabilities who are experts in ecological agriculture, involves educational centers in a circular economy program through the composting of organic waste.

The European project URBANOME, coordinated by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, follows a similar educational line, but is more focused on achieving citizen well-being in urban environments. Here in Spain, it took the form of the initiative “Rutas Escolares Saludables” (Healthy School Routes), after collecting and evaluating proposals from citizens to develop awareness-raising actions in schools on the quality of life and health in urban environments.

Past and future

A key way to make our future more sustainable is to know as much as possible about our past. Which is what the «La Memoria del Rebaño» (Memory of the Flock) project, coordinated by the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, aims to do.

With the collaboration of people who work or have worked as shepherds, they are creating an extensive documentary catalog that collects their knowledge and experiences, that will help in interpreting data from a study of remains recovered in archaeological sites and related to livestock activity.

Anyone of us who is part of the social fabric can do like Auggie Wren and become part of citizen science by turning some of our passions or hobbies into a source of knowledge that helps us move towards a better and more sustainable future.

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This content is part of a collaboration agreement of ‘WorldCrunch’, with the magazine ‘Ethic’. Read the original at this link.