How to create an effective environmental citizen science program

Places of Climate Change (‘PloCC’)

Roy Arindam

Citizen science is becoming more mainstream as laboratories across the globe are now developing tools to engage citizens in scientific activities. From water quality to biodiversity assessment; from landscape mapping to air pollutant measurement; citizen science is receiving attention from scientists and policymakers. However, there is a fine gap between citizen science and the crowdsourcing of data. Some of the most widely acclaimed citizen science projects failed to engage a majority of citizens due to a lack of communication and improper engagement tools. Sometimes citizens are being used to collect samples for research which led to restricted participation. I have been engaged in conducting citizen science programs for the last five years in India and in this talk, I will present some of the outcomes of my study as well as propose a framework for a good citizen science program.