Research Guides: Open Science: Citizen Science

Useful Guides

Research Data Management
by Wasila Dahdul Last Updated Oct 8, 2024 2879 views this year
Software for Data Analysis
by Danielle Kane Last Updated Sep 27, 2024 35595 views this year
Scholarly Communication & Related Issues
by Mitchell Brown Last Updated Oct 3, 2024 805 views this year

Be a Martian
Help scientist improve maps of Mars and participate in other research tasks to help NASA manage the large amount of data from the Red Planet. Users create Martian profiles and become “citizens” of the planet. In the map room, citizens can then earn Martian credits by helping place satellite photos on Mars’s surface, counting craters, and even helping the rovers Spirit and Opportunity by tagging photos with descriptions.
Corona Report
CoronaReport is a citizen science project for documenting the influence of COVID-19 on our lives. Citizens can use the CoronaReport app to share their stories and to better understand how the virus is changing lives all around the world. These data are helping scientists understand how the virus is affecting the way people live and work.
Dcyphr
Summarize scientific articles to make them more accessible.
Floating Forests
They are trying to understand how forests of kelp grow and change over time. They need your help to find these forests in pictures from space!
Natural Reserve System - University of California
NRS citizen science programs put more eyes on the land to make valuable observations about our changing world. Amateur researchers further our understanding of plant responses, animal behaviors, and climate cycles while deepening their connections with nature.
Wildlife of Los Angeles
Help identify Los Angeles' wild neighbors! Help tag photos and see if you can find the world's most famous mountain lion, P-22.

Citizen science is public participation and collaboration in scientific research.
It can be done by all age groups and education levels.
Most citizen science projects require no background knowledge prior to participation. However, some projects often involving coding, data analysis, data management do require varying levels of experience in a scientific discipline.

Bat Detective
Humans are fantastic at hearing and seeing the difference between a bat and a non-bat call, the different types of calls and what sequence a call belongs in. Through Bat Detective, volunteers listened to audio recordings (and viewed the associated spectrogram) in order to pick out, mark, and label different bat and non-bat calls.
Galaxy Zoo
We have lots of brand new images now available for you to classify!
They come from a new survey called Hawaii Two-0, a key component of the larger Cosmic Dawn survey.
Globe at Night
Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure & submit their night sky brightness observations.
Monarch Butterfly's
They report migrating monarchs, eggs, larvae and the first milkweed of spring.
Old Weather
Help scientists transcribe Arctic and worldwide weather observations recorded in ship's logs since the mid-19th century.
Shakespeare's World
Shakespeare's World is a project to transcribe handwritten documents by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and help us understand his life and times.
Stall Catchers
Citizen scientists worldwide are speeding up Alzheimer's research

CitzenScience.gov
CitizenScience.gov is an official government website designed to accelerate the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science across the U.S. government.
NASA
NASA’s citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries.
Smithsonian
Become a Smithsonian Digital Volunteer and help them make historical documents and biodiversity data more accessible.

Adventure Science
Adventure Science™ is a non-profit organization operating in Canada, the US, and the UK that pairs super-fit adventure athletes with researchers, taking them into some of the most remote and hard to reach places on our planet to conduct scientific, conservation, and humanitarian projects. We are experts at exploring the world’s dark zones.
Cornell Lab or Ornithology
We bring together scientists, students, and people from all walks of life in the quest to generate new knowledge and conserve our shared natural world.
iNaturalist
Explore and share your observations from the natural world.
Nature's Notebook
Discover and document changes in nature near you.
The Nature Conservancy
The conservation community relies heavily on volunteers to not only restore natural areas, but to help gauge the success of our restoration efforts. Volunteers team up with experienced stewards and scientists to monitor the recovery of native habitats, or to record data on rare species of wildflowers, butterflies and other wildlife.
Scientific American
Help make science happen by volunteering for a real research project.
SciStarter
Find volunteer opportunities that match topics you're curious or concerned about. There's something for everyone!
Zooniverse
The Zooniverse enables everyone to take part in real cutting edge research in many fields across the sciences, humanities, and more. The Zooniverse creates opportunities for you to unlock answers and contribute to real discoveries.