Citizen Science Fun with Kids

Image by almariel1 from Pixabay

Citizen science is a way to observe and collect data in the field and share it with scientists. In a recent ALSC blog post, Kelly Depin, writing on behalf of the ALSC School Age Services Committee explains how to involve youth in projects through library programming.

Kelly writes: "The Citizen Science (also known as Community Science) movement is bringing ordinary people of all ages in contact with ongoing scientific studies and letting them help by collecting or analyzing data, defining problems, etc. There are four features which help define a citizen scientist project: anyone can help; the same protocol is used by everyone; the data plus the scientist equals real conclusions; and the wide community of scientists and volunteers share the data in an open format. While it seems like a new concept, the Audubon Society has been managing the oldest and longest running project, ‘the Christmas Bird Count’, since 1900."

To learn more about how this could work at your library, stop here for the full blog post. [Wanted - Citizen Scientists. Depin, Kelly. ALSC blog. December 23, 2023]