OOS 4-7
Engaging the general public in NEON education: Citizen science in action
At the interface of science and education, citizen science programs and activities have experienced rapid growth in the past decade. In its early planning and development stages, NEON saw the huge potential of such programs and has made it a cornerstone of its education and outreach efforts. Early on, Project BudBurst (budburst.org), a plant phenology program, was identified as one type of citizen science project that would be well suited in helping NEON meet its goals of engaging the general public in the scientific process. Many large scale citizen science efforts such as Project BudBurst are created by scientists and educators with relatively little input from the intended audience – in our case, broadly defined as the general public. Project Budburst developed materials to engage diverse audiences including classroom teachers and their students, visitors to botanic gardens, parks, and nature centers, and other amateur naturalists of all ages. We were interested in determining if the instructional resources and scientific protocols provided would be relatively easy for non-scientists to implement and subsequently, developed several mechanisms for feedback from participants to make certain instructional materials were meeting the needs of the citizen scientists involved. In this case, we would utilize the creatively and energy of the citizen scientists themselves in making improvements to Project BudBurst.
Results/Conclusions
In its 7 years of existence, Project BudBurst has been significantly improved by gathering input and suggestions from the very participants it was created to engage. In turn, the observations and reports from Project BudBurst participants have provided useful phenological data that has been used in numerous scientific publications and educational resources. For example, initially, Project BudBurst allowed only observations of dates (the timing of first flower, leaf, fruit, etc). By doing so, it was clear that participation was being limited. A status base or single report was developed and has proven very useful in engaging a larger number of observers. A usability study was conducted to learn more about the user experience. A number of improvements resulted from this effort including a self-guided tutorial, simplified data sheets, and more background information. Large, Internet-based programs such as Project BudBurst depend on the participation of citizen scientists from all walks of life to extend the temporal and spatial reach of data. It is clear that the input of citizen scientists is also central to program improvement.