Citizen Science Then and Now
August 19, 2013
In the latest issue of NEON Citizen Science Director Sandra Henderson and Chicago Botanic Garden Senior Scientist describe the evolution of the six-year-old NEON citizen science program Project Budburst and tie it back to its historic roots in the observations recorded by naturalists and amateur scientists of centuries past.
鈥淚n a sense, all scientists were once citizen scientists,鈥� Havens and Henderson write. Past plant observers such as recorded the timing of nearby cherry tree blooms and fruit with pen and notebook. Now, Project Budburst recruits non-experts armed with modern technology such as smartphones, cameras and the Internet to collect systematic observations of plant phenology, or the timing of key events in the life cycles of plants. Scientists have the resulting national-scale, crowdsourced data set in several studies that describe some of the impacts of climate and environmental change on animals, plants and human society.
Havens and Henderson also describe some of the keys to Project Budburst鈥檚 success, such as broad participation, seasonal campaigns, and learning from and contributing to an emerging citizen science movement. Their article, 鈥淐itizen Science Takes Root,鈥� appears in the .
