Citizen science data: It's not just for scientists

Background/Question/Methods

The collection of data by citizen scientists has been going on for centuries. These data have been analyzed and visualized by scientists for publications and the visualizations have often been shared with participants. For example, data collected by scientists in the Chicago area have been combined with Project BudBurst data to draw inferences about changes in flowering times of plants. However, the ability of the public to visualize and analyze citizen science datasets on their own is all too often out of reach either because the data or the tools to visualize and analyze the data are “available” but not “accessible” to a general audience. This poster will demonstrate how accessible data visualization/analysis tools can be used by general audiences to better understand freely available, citizen science data from NEON’s Project BudBurst to better understand changes in plant phenology across the United States. Project BudBurst (budburst.org) is a national citizen science project focused on monitoring plant phenology.

Results/Conclusions

We’ve found citizen science data to be useful for science, formal and informal education, outreach, and other general audiences. We highlight several freely available data visualization/analysis tools we’ve used with Project BudBurst data to do basic analysis that can be used by anyone with a computer and internet access. We’ve found that freely available tools are well received by informal and formal education communities and can be used in the classroom. Data visualization/analysis empowers general audiences to explore and understand data and engage and connect science with diverse communities. Audiences can use available tools to look at data most meaningful to them. For example, a teacher in Florida can focus on tree data for Southern magnolias, graphing the flowering dates across the southeastern US and engage students in asking scientific questions about the data they help collect such as: “What do you hypothesize about the first flowering dates for Southern magnolias in Florida versus Georgia?” Students can then collect data about Southern magnolia flowering dates in their area, add it to a national database of observations, and use simple, accessible tools to compare their observations to those made by participants in Georgia to determine if the data support their hypothesis.