No Ph.D. Needed: 8 Impactful Citizen Science Projects

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Image: Flickr, Mount Rainier National Park

By Eli Epstein2014-06-25 14:56:30 UTC

You don't need a Ph.D. to contribute to scientific research. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile apps and advances in online crowdsourcing platforms, non-professionals are helping researchers identify new species, track comets, name proteins, project climate patterns and much more. Science-minded individuals have myriad opportunities to get their hands dirty and partner with professional scientists, conducting ground-breaking research together.

See also: What Is Citizen Science, and How Can You Get Involved?

And their roles aren't minimal. Citizen scientists might spend countless hours sifting, organizing and observing, and thus free up resources for scientists, who don't have the money or time to investigate every possible data set.

Here are eight projects citizen scientists are sinking their teeth into and working on that are making a difference for the rest of us.

Who would have thought that by shipping logs from boats that sailed the Arctic Ocean hundreds of years ago we would be able to solve modern-day climate issues?

While scientists would love to pore through old logs to discern climate conditions, most of those logs aren't accurately digitized. Even if they were, though, it would take scientists eons to thoroughly convert all of them.

Enter citizen scientists. Climatologists tasked them with analyzing hand-written shipping logs to locate and transcribe atmospheric data, such as air pressure, wind speed and temperature.

With this user-collected information, Old Weather's multi-institution team of scientists is able to input century-old data into its climate models and make more accurate predictions.

"The primary goal is to transcribe weather data that’s not available to science because it isn’t digital, and put it all into the global database for reanalysis," says Kevin R. Wood, a research scientist at the University of Washington and U.S. lead investigator for Old Weather.

The Road Ecology measures roadkill density near San Francisco

Image: Road Ecology Center

In California and Maine, citizens along with scientists and policy makers are ensuring that wildlife isn't killed in vain.

As part of the the University of California, Davis’ roadkill survey, members of the public are tasked with observing and passing on where and which animals are being struck by vehicles.

"We look at the environmental effects of roads on ecosystems and people," says Fraser Shilling, co-director of the Road Ecology Center (REC) at UCD.

In addition to looking at roadkill observations, citizen scientists working with the Road Ecology Center are also asked to set up cameras that monitor living animals. With that footage, researchers can learn how new and existing roadways impact wildlife communities.

Eventually, ecologists at the Road Ecology Center take citizen observations to state agencies, which use the data to design safer and less intrusive infrastructure.

"It’s all useful ecological information that would otherwise be expensive to collect and found in too limited of an area," Shilling says.

A kudu at Karoo National Park in South Africa, documented in the Encyclopedia of Life

Image: Flickr, WhatsThePointSA

At the intersection of science and social media is the Encyclopedia of Life, a digital project that scrapes user-generated uploads to its Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud pages in order to create a more detailed spectrum of the world’s 1.9 million named species.

"We want to bring together information on biodiversity and liberate it so more people have access to it," says Jennifer Hammock, programs coordinator at the Encyclopedia of Life, which is supported by a number of institutions including Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution.

Users submit and tag video, audio and photographic observations of animals they’ve recorded. Once in the EOL, that information can be used for scientific papers. It’s also given to scientists who can insert it into larger data samples.

"The data points on EOL go into big buckets of data where people can look for patterns," says Hammock. "Are species shifting their ranges? You need a lot of data for something like that."

"We're a warehouse of information and we're just starting to see what people will do," she adds.

Sungrazing comet C/2011 N3 (SOHO) near a superimposed Extreme Ultraviolet image of the Sun.

Since the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) launched in 1995, more than 95% of the 2,700 comets it found have been identified by amateur astronomists, says Karl Battams, a computational scientist and the principal investigator for Sungrazer, the official, NASA-funded project that runs comet hunting with the SOHO satellite.

When the observatory dumps data to the web, amateur scientists are the ones who wade through it to ascertain previously undiscovered comets. The comets they find are then turned over to scientists for further research projects.

"Collectively, citizen scientists put in an enormous number of man-hours to look through data," Battams says. “It’s a time resource that scientists don't have. There is no practical alternative to getting this information out of the data."

"Once the orbits have been published, it’s open season for scientists to analyze the different groups of comets or interesting individual comets," he adds.

An Ant Mimic/Ground Sac Spider and a Three striped Red Crab Spider

Image: Mashable Composite/ Project Noah

Project Noah founder Yasser Ansari (he calls himself the "Chief Leaf") likes to think of his organization as the most hospitable starting point for amateur taxonomists and anyone curious about things they see in nature.

The four-year-old project — which is affiliated with National Geographic and has iPhone and Android apps, as well as an online hub — allows users to report and record species sightings, track their movements and pose questions to professional scientists and other community members.

Since 2010, Project Noah’s more than 250,000 users uploaded more than one million geotagged photos from all seven continents. Some of those photos generated major ecological investigations. Project Noah users have, for instance, captured evidence of what some believe to be the first documented cases of an Ant Mimic or Ground Sac Spider in California and a Three-Striped Red Crab Spider in Sri Lanka.

Both discoveries have entomologists buzzing, and they prove citizen science means more than silent observation.

"Every schoolyard and backyard has the potential to become a biological research station and help us learn more about our planet," Ansari says.

"I really feel that the next Attenborough or Goodall could already be part of our community, and it's up to us to keep encouraging her and pushing her forward."

Frederick from Poland, a 3-month-old studied in the project.

Image: The Baby Laughter Project

No matter how many resources scientist Dr. Caspar Addyman has, there's one vital tool his Birkbeck BabyLab cannot produce on-demand: Laughter.

To organically cull babies' cackles, Addyman asked parents around the world to submit videos, questionnaires and "field reports" of their babies laughing. Already, 1,400 parents have completed a detailed questionnaire about what makes their infant laugh, so researchers can study how babies communicate.

"The laughter of tiny babies is not just a phenomenally popular theme for YouTube videos, it is also a fantastic window into the workings of the human brain," he says. "I believe that studying early laughter in detail will throw new light on the workings of babies' brains, as well as offer new insights into the uniquely human characteristic that is humor."

An IceWatch volunteer records observations

Scientists need all the available volunteers they can get to research how climate change is affecting ecosystems and species. At IceWatch, run by the nonprofit Nature Abounds, citizen scientists are tasked with monitoring the "ice on" and "ice off" conditions of lakes, rivers and other bodies of water. In particular, they're asked to observe temperature, precipitation levels and type, ice coverage (if applicable) and the species they see and hear around them.

With citizen-generated information, IceWatch is able to work with institutions and government agencies that study climate change and environmental indicators.

"Seasonal differences in the ice cover of lakes and rivers can have a serious impact on our ecosystems," says Melinda Hughes-Wert, the president and co-founder of Nature Abounds.

"For example," she says, "changes can occur in the migration patterns and breeding seasons of birds, food supplies for fish and mammals, water temperature and water chemistry. Additionally, ice cover affects trade, transportation, outdoor recreation, and tourism."

Dylan Vecchione documenting a reef

Image: Maurizio Vecchione

You might live thousands of miles away from a coral reef, but that doesn't mean you can't help scientists prevent their demise. Thanks to the dogged efforts of Dylan Vecchione, who, at the age of 15, started the ReefQuest citizen science project, anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in ocean ecology can help scientists observe and measure endangered underwater reefs.

As part of ReefQuest, amateur scientists are asked to dissect panoramic images of reefs to determine how they've evolved and if they've been affected by man-made pollution and other reef stressors. Citizen observations are then passed onto researchers at Hawaii's Division of Aquatic Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"We think of ReefQuest as a visualized data set," Vecchione says. "We want people to feel like they're diving and taking these underwater measurements."

"We're taking real science and adapting it for citizens of the world who want to make a difference."

Are you a citizen scientist? Tell us about your experience in the comments.

Topics: astronomy, biology, Climate, ecology, Space, The Mine, US & World