Project BudBurst and FieldScope: Creating science data visualization tools for use by citizen scientists and educators

Background/Question/Methods

Project BudBurst is a continental-scale citizen science project, currently conducting its eighth annual campaign to increase awareness of the impacts of changing climates on plants and the environment by engaging individuals in the collection of phenological data. The National Ecological Observatory Network’s (NEON’s) Project BudBurst explores ways in which interested laypersons can actively participate in meaningful scientific research. National Geographic Society’s (NGS) FieldScope is a project to create and study technology infrastructure enabling deeper learning about scientific topics by providing a central, easily accessible repository for citizen science data. Project BudBurst has collaborating with the National Geographic Society on a multi-year, full-scale development project to create a set of publicly available tools to increase the impact of public participation in scientific research.  Specifically, NGS FieldScope has developed online data visualization tools utilizing data collected by Project BudBurst in order to determine if citizen scientists, educators, and students can perform data analysis to answer relevant research questions such as: “What is the geographic pattern of the onset of phenological events?” “How has the timing of phenological events changed over the long term?” and “Can growing degree days be used to model phenological events?”

Results/Conclusions

Now in its fourth year, the Project BudBurst / NGS FieldScope collaboration began by conducting detailed reviews of observation and data collection protocols to identify an appropriate suite of data analysis tools suitable for use by citizen scientists to answer the research questions posed above.  To facilitate the exploration of phenological event onset patterns, an online GIS tool was developed to provide an animated view of reported events over time, providing the user with an intuitive way of observing patterns such as green-up and brown-down.  A time-series plotting tool was developed to explore long-term changes in the timing of phenological events.  In order to evaluate plant growth based on growing degree day calculations, it was necessary to create a simple analysis tool appropriate for use by citizen scientists.  In support of these new tools, a suite of professional development resources for educators, including written modules, video tutorials, and an online course were developed and published. In conclusion, this long-term collaboration between Project BudBurst and NGS FieldScope has resulted in the creation of a suite of data visualization and analysis tools that are effective for use by citizen scientists and the informal education communities.