Citizen Science
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Citizen Science
Citizen science is an approach to research in which members of the public participate in scientific work by collecting observations, making measurements, classifying data, monitoring environmental conditions, analyzing information, or contributing local knowledge. Modern citizen-science programs operate across ecology, conservation, astronomy, public health, Earth science, pollution monitoring, agriculture, archaeology, and many other fields.
Although digital technologies have greatly expanded citizen science, public participation in scientific observation has a much longer history. Naturalists, birdwatchers, farmers, community observers, and other volunteers have contributed information about wildlife, weather, plants, landscapes, and environmental change for generations. Modern programs increasingly combine these traditions with smartphones, online databases, satellites, artificial intelligence, environmental DNA, inexpensive sensors, and large-scale digital platforms.
Citizen science can expand the geographic and temporal reach of scientific research far beyond what professional researchers could achieve alone. Large networks of participants may produce millions of observations across countries and continents. At the same time, successful citizen-science programs must address questions involving data quality, sampling bias, training, participant retention, ethics, transparency, accessibility, reproducibility, and the relationship between researchers and participating communities.
Foundations and Methods
Citizen-science projects vary greatly in structure. Some programs are designed primarily by professional scientists who ask volunteers to collect standardized observations. Others involve participants in designing research questions, choosing methods, interpreting results, or determining how findings should be used.
Researchers have developed increasingly sophisticated methods for evaluating citizen-science data. Training, standardized protocols, repeated observations, expert verification, statistical corrections, photographic documentation, automated identification systems, and comparisons with professional surveys can all improve reliability.
Large citizen-science datasets can nevertheless contain biases. Observations tend to be concentrated where participants live, travel, or have access to technology. Popular or easily recognized species may receive far more attention than obscure organisms. Wealthier countries and accessible locations may be represented more heavily than remote or underserved regions.
These limitations do not necessarily make citizen-science information unusable. Instead, researchers increasingly develop analytical methods that account for uneven participation, observation effort, geographic coverage, and differences between structured and unstructured data.
Open science is another important issue. Citizen-science projects may increase their scientific value when methods, datasets, metadata, and research procedures are accessible and transparent. Participants may also be more willing to contribute when they understand how information will be stored, shared, interpreted, and used.
Biodiversity and Conservation
Biodiversity monitoring is one of the largest applications of citizen science. Volunteers record birds, mammals, insects, plants, amphibians, reptiles, marine organisms, invasive species, roadkill, flowering times, migrations, and many other ecological phenomena.
Platforms and programs such as eBird, iNaturalist, BioBlitzes, national species atlases, park monitoring programs, and community wildlife surveys allow thousands or millions of participants to contribute observations. These records can help scientists map species distributions, identify changes in abundance, document migration, detect invasive species, examine protected areas, and identify locations where professional monitoring is limited.
Citizen science is particularly valuable because biodiversity change often occurs across geographic areas too large for professional scientists to monitor continuously. Long-running volunteer programs can also provide observations spanning years or decades.
Protected-area managers increasingly use public observations to supplement formal biological inventories. Citizen scientists may document species that have been overlooked by official surveys, map recreational impacts, identify invasive plants, monitor threatened species, or help detect ecological changes requiring management attention.
Community participation may also strengthen conservation by increasing people's knowledge of local ecosystems and providing opportunities for residents to participate directly in environmental stewardship.
Birds, Plants, Pollinators, and Wildlife
Bird monitoring is among the oldest and most developed forms of citizen science. Large volunteer networks have generated extensive datasets on bird distributions, migration, abundance, breeding, habitat use, and population trends.
Programs such as eBird demonstrate how observations originally submitted by birdwatchers can become large scientific datasets used by ecologists, statisticians, conservation organizations, governments, and land managers. Bird atlases and volunteer monitoring programs in Africa, North America, Australia, Europe, and other regions provide information that would be difficult to obtain through professional surveys alone.
Plants and pollinators are another major area of participation. Volunteers record flowering, leaf emergence, fruiting, insect activity, monarch butterflies, bees, and other seasonal events. These observations can reveal phenological changes associated with climate and environmental conditions.
Citizen-science programs have contributed to research on declining butterfly populations, pollinator distribution, invasive plants, threatened insects, urban wildlife, marine mammals, coral reefs, and wildlife mortality on roads.
Some studies demonstrate that properly designed volunteer surveys can produce results comparable with professional monitoring. Others show that citizen-science observations become especially valuable when combined with professional surveys, remote sensing, or statistical modeling.
Water, Oceans, Pollution, and Climate
Citizen science increasingly contributes to environmental monitoring involving rivers, lakes, oceans, coastlines, air pollution, plastics, weather, and climate.
Community volunteers may collect water samples, measure temperature, record water clarity, monitor nutrients, document marine debris, survey coral reefs, or report flooding and precipitation. Standardized monitoring programs can generate long-term datasets across coastlines and watersheds that would otherwise be difficult and expensive to maintain.
Low-cost sensors have also expanded opportunities for monitoring air pollution and personal exposure. Community-based projects can document environmental conditions at scales that conventional monitoring stations may miss, including differences between neighborhoods and individual exposure patterns.
Citizen scientists have participated in monitoring plastics and microplastics, pesticides, nutrients, metals, and other pollutants. Researchers continue to evaluate which inexpensive instruments and sampling techniques provide sufficiently reliable information for scientific and regulatory purposes.
Weather and climate programs similarly use public reports of rain, snow, hail, flooding, vegetation changes, and other environmental conditions. These observations may supplement satellites, radar, official weather stations, and professional field measurements.
Earth Science and Public Health
Citizen science extends beyond traditional ecology. Public reports have become valuable sources of information about earthquakes, disease vectors, ticks, mosquitoes, environmental exposures, and other phenomena related to Earth science and public health.
The U.S. Geological Survey's Did You Feel It? system demonstrates the scale that public participation can achieve. Millions of earthquake reports can be converted into detailed maps showing how strongly shaking was experienced across affected regions.
Weather-reporting systems similarly allow members of the public to submit observations of rain, snow, hail, flooding, and wind damage.
Public-health researchers are increasingly exploring citizen science for mosquito and tick surveillance. Community observations can help map species distributions, track seasonal changes, identify invasive disease vectors, and potentially provide early warning of changing health risks.
Citizen science may also allow communities experiencing pollution or environmental hazards to participate directly in documenting conditions affecting their health. This creates opportunities for environmental research to incorporate local experience alongside conventional scientific measurements.
Astronomy, Space, and Online Citizen Science
Astronomy has become one of the most successful fields for online citizen science because enormous scientific datasets can be divided into tasks suitable for public participation.
Projects associated with NASA and Zooniverse allow volunteers to classify galaxies, examine telescope observations, search for planets and asteroids, study solar activity, identify unusual astronomical objects, and analyze space-weather data.
Zooniverse has grown into a global research platform involving millions of volunteers and hundreds of millions of classifications. Participants contribute not only to astronomy but also to ecology, biology, climate research, history, wildlife monitoring, and other fields.
Citizen scientists have participated in discoveries involving asteroids, stellar companions, unusual solar activity, exoplanets, galaxies, and other astronomical phenomena. Some volunteers have progressed from performing classifications to conducting analysis and becoming coauthors or even lead authors on scientific papers.
These programs demonstrate that citizen science can involve much more than simple data collection. Participants may develop technical skills, analyze scientific datasets, write software, conduct follow-up observations, and contribute directly to published research.
Community Participation, Equity, and Indigenous Knowledge
An important development in citizen science is growing recognition that communities should not always be treated merely as sources of unpaid data.
Community science and participatory research approaches increasingly emphasize co-creation, local ownership, reciprocal benefits, recognition of community expertise, and involvement in decisions about how research is conducted and used.
Indigenous and local knowledge can provide ecological information developed through long-term relationships with particular landscapes and species. Projects combining conventional scientific methods with Indigenous knowledge may improve biodiversity monitoring while supporting locally led environmental management.
Questions of participation and equity remain important. Citizen-science datasets can reflect inequalities involving geography, income, education, access to technology, gender, age, mobility, and proximity to protected areas or research institutions.
Researchers increasingly argue that project success should therefore be evaluated not only by the amount of data collected but also by who participates, who benefits, whose knowledge is recognized, and whether communities have meaningful influence over research priorities and outcomes.
Technology and Emerging Applications
New technologies are rapidly changing citizen science.
Smartphones allow participants to collect photographs, sounds, geographic coordinates, environmental measurements, and species observations almost anywhere. Online databases can aggregate millions of these observations and make them available to researchers.
Artificial intelligence can help identify species, classify images, process recordings, and manage very large datasets. However, AI also creates new risks. Fabricated or incorrectly generated biodiversity records could contaminate citizen-science databases if platforms do not develop safeguards for verifying observations.
Remote sensing provides another important opportunity. Citizen observations can be combined with satellite imagery to validate measurements, improve habitat maps, monitor forests, measure soil moisture, study urban environments, and identify ecological change.
Environmental DNA provides additional possibilities. Community participants can collect water or environmental samples that researchers analyze for genetic traces of organisms, allowing citizen science to contribute to increasingly sophisticated biodiversity surveys.
Machine learning, inexpensive sensors, acoustic monitoring, drone imagery, satellite observations, and digital mapping are increasingly being combined with citizen participation. The result is a model in which public observations and professional science can complement one another across very large areas.
Scientific Benefits and Limitations
The principal strength of citizen science is scale. Professional scientists cannot continuously observe every species, ecosystem, coastline, neighborhood, watershed, or astronomical dataset. Large networks of participants can greatly expand scientific coverage.
Citizen science can also produce long-term datasets, improve public understanding of science, provide educational opportunities, strengthen community involvement, and connect environmental observations with management and policy.
However, citizen science is not automatically reliable simply because a project has many participants. Poorly designed programs may suffer from inconsistent observations, geographic bias, inaccurate identification, insufficient training, incomplete metadata, uneven sampling effort, or inadequate quality control.
The strongest programs therefore combine public participation with careful scientific design. Clear protocols, training, validation, transparency, statistical methods, open data practices, and continued communication between researchers and participants can greatly increase the usefulness of the information collected.
Citizen science is most effective when it is treated not merely as inexpensive data collection but as a genuine partnership between professional researchers and the people contributing observations, knowledge, time, and expertise.
Conclusion
Citizen science has developed from traditional networks of volunteer naturalists into a major component of modern scientific research. Public participation now contributes to biodiversity monitoring, conservation, pollution research, climate observation, public health, astronomy, marine science, Earth science, agriculture, and many other fields.
Its greatest advantage is the ability to connect large numbers of observers with scientific questions occurring across enormous geographic and temporal scales. Digital platforms, smartphones, sensors, satellites, artificial intelligence, environmental DNA, and machine learning are expanding those possibilities even further.
At the same time, the future of citizen science depends on maintaining scientific quality and building fair relationships with participants. Questions of data accuracy, representation, accessibility, community ownership, ethics, transparency, and reciprocal benefit are becoming as important as the number of observations collected.
When citizen science combines rigorous methods with meaningful public participation, it can do more than generate data. It can broaden scientific knowledge, strengthen environmental monitoring, support conservation and public decision-making, and give communities a larger role in understanding and managing the environments in which they live.
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Foundations, Methods, and the Citizen-Science Model
| Ailidh E. Barnes et al. | Landscape Ecology | 2025-08-26
Explores how citizen science can move beyond species observations to help map and monitor habitat extent and condition, complementing professional surveys and Earth observation.
| Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery | People and Nature / University of Oxford | 2025
A systematic review and survey examines how community science can assess nature's benefits and natural capital, while identifying gaps in aquatic, soil, mineral, and cultural ecosystem-service monitoring.
| Research team | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2023-03-31
Reviews 107 citizen-science projects involving macroinvertebrates and finds strong taxonomic and geographic biases, while outlining ways to improve global conservation coverage.
Examines whether biodiversity-monitoring citizen-science surveys follow core open-science principles, including accessibility, data sharing, transparency, and reproducibility.
| Dilek Fraisl et al. | Nature Reviews Methods Primers | 2022-08-25
A major methods primer explains how citizen science is designed and managed in environmental and ecological research, including volunteer engagement, data quality, bias correction, ethics, reproducibility, and open-data practices.
| Li, Zhang & Haklay | Acta Ecologica Sinica / UCL Discovery | 2018
Surveys the state of citizen science in European and American environmental research and management, emphasizing its rapid expansion and institutional development.
| Chandler et al. | Biological Conservation | 2017-09
Assesses how citizen-science programs contribute to international biodiversity monitoring and Essential Biodiversity Variables, while identifying taxonomic and geographic gaps and opportunities for global scaling.
| Wessel Ganzevoort et al. | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2017-06-16
Investigates why citizen scientists share biodiversity data, what concerns they have, and how project design can better support participant trust and continued data contribution.
| Duncan C. McKinley et al. | U.S. Geological Survey / Biological Conservation | 2017
Argues that well-designed citizen science can produce rigorous data for conservation, natural-resource management, environmental protection, and policymaking while also strengthening public participation.
| Marijke Welvaert & Peter Caley | SpringerPlus | 2016-10-28
Reviews citizen science and crowdsourcing as complementary approaches for large-scale environmental surveillance and quantitative monitoring.
| Masashi Kobori et al. | Ecological Research | 2016
Reviews citizen science as a tool for ecology, education, and conservation, using examples from Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom and discussing data quality, recruitment, and long-term program design.
| Rod Kennett, Finn Danielsen & Kirsten M. Silvius | Nature | 2015-05-13
A short critique argues that conventional citizen science often emphasizes data collection in wealthy and accessible regions and should be complemented by participatory monitoring led by local and Indigenous communities.
| Miguel Clavero & Eloy Revilla | Nature | 2014-06-04
Shows that citizen science has deep historical roots, highlighting centuries-old community observations that can provide valuable long-term biodiversity information.
| Vincent Devictor et al. | Diversity and Distributions / Oxford University | 2010
Explains how large citizen-science datasets can support conservation biogeography by revealing biodiversity patterns across large spatial and temporal scales.
| Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Cornell University | n.d.
Explains the terminology and history surrounding citizen science, community science, and participatory science and why different projects and communities may prefer different terms.
Biodiversity, Conservation, and Urban Nature
| Alexander C. Lees et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-07-13
Warns that generative AI can introduce fabricated or misleading biodiversity records into citizen-science platforms and argues for safeguards to protect data integrity.
| Gideon G. Deme | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026-06-15
Discusses the potential for citizen science to strengthen biodiversity knowledge and community empowerment in the Afrotropics, where monitoring gaps remain especially large.
| Roberto Costantino et al. | Urban Ecosystems | 2026-06-01
Studies the City Nature Challenge in Italy and finds that museum coordination can increase participation and substantially expand the biodiversity recorded in cities.
| Otso Ovaskainen et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-01-27
Demonstrates a digital-twin framework that incorporates citizen-science observations into near-real-time biodiversity forecasting.
| DSE & Karuk Wildlife Team | UC Berkeley | 2025-10-31
Describes research combining citizen-science elk sightings with Karuk Indigenous knowledge to improve biodiversity monitoring and support Indigenous-led wildlife restoration.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2025
Shows how park managers use public observations from programs such as iNaturalist, eBird, BioBlitzes, and invasive-species monitoring to identify ecological threats and guide management.
| Estibaliz Palma et al. | BioScience | 2024-04-18
Evaluates the City Nature Challenge as a global urban citizen-science phenomenon and shows how local governments can use the observations for biodiversity knowledge, education, management, and policy.
| Paige Lambert et al. | Park Science / National Park Service | 2023-07-31
Describes how trained volunteers mapped social trails, human waste, and congregation areas in Rocky Mountain National Park to help managers quantify recreation impacts.
| Fang-Yu Shen, Tzung-Su Ding & Jo-Szu Tsai | Scientific Reports | 2023-01-21
Compares structured and semi-structured citizen-science datasets for estimating bird species richness and evaluates how survey design affects biodiversity estimates.
| Research team | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2023
Uses data from three large UK citizen-science programs to evaluate how protected areas affect bird occurrence, abundance, population change, community structure, and productivity.
| Sophie Wolf et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2022-10-20
Shows that millions of citizen-science plant observations can reproduce broad global plant-trait patterns and complement traditional ecological datasets.
| Angela T. Moles & Zoe A. Xirocostas | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2022-10-20
Highlights the statistical power created by the enormous sample sizes available through citizen-science biodiversity observations.
| Research team | Nature Conservation | 2022
Reports on nearly 90,000 wildlife roadkill records from Belgium and shows that long-term citizen participation can generate large, accurate datasets for road ecology.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2021-03
Examines how COVID-19 changed participation patterns, observation locations, and biodiversity reporting in Tokyo's City Nature Challenge.
| USGS research team | U.S. Geological Survey | 2020-08-03
Uses 1,500 volunteer observations to document extended leaf seasons in invasive shrubs across eastern U.S. forests and reveal geographic patterns that would be difficult to sample professionally.
| Research team | Nature Communications | 2020
Uses eBird data across tropical biodiversity hotspots to test whether protected areas retain forest-dependent, endemic, and threatened bird diversity.
| Sumner, Bevan, Hart & Isaac | Insect Conservation and Diversity / UCL Discovery | 2019
Shows that a two-week citizen-science survey of social wasps produced distribution data comparable in some respects to decades of expert recording.
| Research team | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2018
Tests citizen-science roadkill observations in South Africa against trained road-patrol data to evaluate their reliability for large-scale wildlife monitoring.
| Anna Wilson et al. | Park Science / National Park Service | 2017
Compares professional science, trained citizen science, and crowdsourced photographs for monitoring wildflower phenology and climate responses at Mount Rainier National Park.
| USGS research team | U.S. Geological Survey | 2016-01-01
Uses Burmese python observations in Everglades National Park to examine both the promise and limitations of citizen-science data for invasive-species management.
Birds and Large-Scale Biological Monitoring
| Research team | Ornithological Applications | 2026-05-05
Analyzes a decade of Kenya Bird Map observations in the Upper Tana Watershed, where volunteers recorded 575 species and supplied data for identifying ecological boundaries and monitoring priorities.
| Research team | Bird Conservation International | 2026
Reviews bird-monitoring programs across Africa and finds that volunteer participation is central to many national and regional efforts, while training, retention, funding, and data management remain challenges.
| Corey T. Callaghan et al. | Ecological Indicators / UCL Discovery | 2021
Combines citizen-science bird records with remotely sensed night-time lights to develop a globally applicable measure of how tolerant bird species are of urban environments.
| Team eBird | eBird | 2020-03-27
Shows how even short bird counts from homes and gardens can contribute observations that help scientists understand bird populations in human-dominated landscapes.
| Alan T. K. Lee et al. | Bird Conservation International | 2017-09
Uses Southern African Bird Atlas Project citizen-science data to derive range and population-change metrics that can inform conservation assessments of endemic birds.
| Matthew R. Williams et al. | Oryx | 2015-07-01
Shows how annual citizen-science roost counts revealed an ongoing decline in the endangered Carnaby's black-cockatoo in Western Australia.
| Team eBird | eBird | 2015-05-09
Describes recognition of eBird for using citizen-science observations to support global bird mapping, conservation planning, and decision-making.
| Supp et al. | Ecosphere | 2015
Uses eBird observations to examine annual and seasonal variation in migration patterns of North American hummingbirds at fine temporal scales.
| Team eBird | eBird | 2014-02-26
Explains how eBird evolved from a bird-recording project into a large collaborative research enterprise connecting birders, ecologists, statisticians, computer scientists, and conservation practitioners.
| Cornell Chronicle | Cornell University | 2005-07-28
Provides an early look at Cornell's continent-scale citizen-science bird programs and the role thousands of volunteers played in producing publishable scientific data.
| eBird Science | Cornell Lab of Ornithology | n.d.
Summarizes ways eBird data are applied to research, habitat management, species management, protected-area decisions, and conservation policy.
| Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Cornell University | n.d.
Introduces several participatory-science bird counts and monitoring programs and explains how public observations contribute to understanding and protecting bird populations.
| Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Cornell University | n.d.
Highlights participatory bird-science programs for Latin America and the Caribbean, including NestWatch, the Great Backyard Bird Count, and Project FeederWatch.
| BirdNET team | Cornell University | n.d.
Explains how users can identify birds by sound and optionally share recordings that contribute to biodiversity monitoring and the improvement of acoustic-identification tools.
Plants, Pollinators, Insects, and Phenology
| Justine et al. | Oikos | 2026
Reviews 87 pollinator citizen-science initiatives and finds major geographic concentration in North America and Europe, emphasizing training and structured methods for policy-relevant monitoring.
Examines educational outcomes when adults involve young people in monarch monitoring and shows how authentic field research can support environmental learning without sacrificing data quality.
| Research team | Journal of Insect Conservation | 2018
Examines the social networks and motivations that keep volunteers engaged for the long term in Germany's butterfly monitoring scheme.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2018
Describes a student citizen-science program monitoring culturally and ecologically important camas lilies at National Park Service sites in Idaho and Montana.
| Schultz et al. | Biological Conservation | 2017-10
Uses decades of citizen-science counts to document severe declines in western North American monarch butterflies and estimate future extinction risk.
| U.S. Geological Survey | U.S. Geological Survey | 2016
Introduces Nature's Notebook and explains why volunteer observations of leafing, flowering, migration, and other seasonal events are valuable indicators of climate change.
| Kelsey Johansen & Alaine Auger | Cambridge University Press | 2012-12-05
Reviews the role citizen science can play in insect conservation, public engagement, monitoring, and environmental education.
| CitizenScience.gov | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Profiles the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, in which volunteers repeatedly survey milkweed, eggs, caterpillars, and habitat to track monarch breeding populations across North America.
| CitizenScience.gov | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Explains Project BudBurst, a nationwide volunteer network recording flowering, leafing, fruiting, and other seasonal plant events to study ecological responses to climate change.
| CitizenScience.gov | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Describes Nature's Notebook, a long-running phenology program in which thousands of observers track seasonal events in more than a thousand plant and animal species.
Water, Oceans, Pollution, and Climate Monitoring
| Hong Yang | Current Environmental Health Reports | 2026-08-28
Reviews citizen-science air-pollution monitoring, including low-cost sensors, calibration, health research, environmental justice, data quality, and policy integration.
| Paula Sills & Rosie Young | Discover Oceans | 2026-07-01
Publishes a citizen-science baseline dataset from coral-reef sites around Isla Solarte, Panama, aimed at improving local long-term reef monitoring.
| NOAA Ocean Service | NOAA | 2026
Surveys NOAA citizen-science opportunities involving tides, floods, marine debris, whales, harmful algal blooms, geodesy, and sanctuary stewardship.
| NOAA Marine Debris Program | NOAA | 2025-07-30
Profiles volunteer shoreline monitoring in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, where standardized surveys help measure debris accumulation and support education and cleanup efforts.
| NOAA Marine Debris Program | NOAA | 2025-05-02
Explains NOAA's marine-debris monitoring framework and how standardized volunteer shoreline data are used to assess trends and improve prevention strategies.
| NOAA Marine Debris Program | NOAA | 2025-04-17
Describes long-term shoreline surveys by trained volunteers in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to track marine debris and build baseline data for prevention and management.
| Research team | City and Environment Interactions | 2023-08
Examines household air-quality monitoring in Nairobi's Kibera settlement and shows how low-cost sensors and community participation can reveal local pollution exposure and support planning.
| COLLECT project research team | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2023
Reports a citizen-science project in Africa and Asia in which high-school students collected comparable observations of coastal plastic litter to fill geographic data gaps.
| Research team | Environmental Monitoring and Assessment | 2022-10-06
Tests whether volunteers can collect scientifically useful surface-water microplastic samples in the Baltic Sea using standardized manta-trawl methods.
| Wilfredo Y. Licuanan et al. | Regional Studies in Marine Science | 2021-09
Presents a simple, low-cost coral-reef monitoring method designed for citizen scientists that can produce coral-cover estimates comparable to more intensive approaches.
| Sarah E. West et al. | Applied Geography | 2020-01
Uses co-created citizen science in a Nairobi informal settlement to measure personal particulate exposure, raise awareness, and help build a network connecting communities, researchers, and policymakers.
| Nicole M. Herman-Mercer et al. | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice / USGS | 2018
Evaluates data quality in the Indigenous Observation Network, a community-based water-quality monitoring program covering the Yukon River basin in Alaska and Canada.
| Terence Done et al. | Marine Pollution Bulletin | 2017-04-15
Evaluates 13 years of Reef Check Australia data and finds that well-designed citizen-science reef surveys can reliably detect ecologically meaningful changes.
| Eva | SciStarter | 2017-03-02
Highlights volunteer weather and climate projects whose observations help calibrate satellite data, improve forecasts, and expand precipitation and climate monitoring.
Highlights public-data projects such as CrowdMag, CoCoRaHS, mPING, and crowdsourced bathymetry that help improve weather, magnetic-field, precipitation, and seafloor information.
Earth Science, Weather, and Public Health
| Nima Kianfar et al. | PLOS One | 2026-05-15
Reviews 61 studies of citizen science in mosquito-borne disease surveillance and finds growing use of mobile platforms for mapping invasive mosquitoes, disease risk, and seasonal trends.
| Jani Jukka Sormunen | Zoonoses and Public Health | 2026-02-16
Finds that citizen-reported tick observations in Finland can function as an early-warning signal for later Lyme borreliosis case peaks.
| UK Tick Surveillance Scheme research team | Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases | 2026-01
Uses public tick submissions from 2021–2024 to update species distributions and develop indicators that can support local public-health responses.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025
Introduces the GLOBE Observer app, which allows volunteers worldwide to collect environmental observations of clouds, mosquitoes, land cover, and trees for Earth-system research.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2024-05-06
Shows how volunteer-generated datasets are translated into management decisions across the National Park System, from bats and ecological threats to visitor-use impacts.
| CitizenScience.gov | CitizenScience.gov | 2023-06-09
Summarizes the scale of NASA public-participation projects and the scientific discoveries, coauthored papers, and research fields supported by millions of volunteers.
| Research team | Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases | 2023-05
Shows that trained volunteers in Maine can conduct active tick surveillance on private properties and collect systematic data on tick abundance, distribution, and pathogens.
| USGS research team | U.S. Geological Survey | 2020-04-09
Reviews two decades of the Did You Feel It? system, which has collected millions of public earthquake reports and rapidly converts them into detailed shaking-intensity maps.
| Research team | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice | 2018
Compares academic, public-health, and citizen-science tick surveillance in Canada and shows the value of sustained local participation for detailed longitudinal monitoring.
| CitizenScience.gov | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Profiles mPING, a crowdsourcing system that gathers public reports of rain, snow, hail, flooding, wind damage, and other conditions to improve weather algorithms and radar interpretation.
Astronomy, Space, and Online Citizen Science
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-07-10
Celebrates Zooniverse reaching one billion volunteer classifications and describes NASA-supported projects using public classifications to discover planets, asteroids, brown dwarfs, space-weather events, and wildlife.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-05-05
Reports that more than 650 NASA citizen scientists have become coauthors on peer-reviewed papers after contributing observations, classifications, data analysis, software, and follow-up research.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-04-27
Highlights volunteer projects studying plant growth, solar activity, microorganisms, and biological adaptation to help address the challenges of long-duration human spaceflight.
| The Zooniverse | Zooniverse | 2026-04-21
Marks Zooniverse's three-million-volunteer milestone and summarizes how public classifications support research ranging from galaxies and exoplanets to wildlife, climate, biology, and history.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-04-17
Explains how volunteers in the HARP project listened to sonified magnetic-field data and identified unexpected plasma-wave behavior relevant to space weather.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-03-13
Describes how Solar Active Region Spotter volunteers helped reveal that long-lived solar active regions produce disproportionately high flare rates.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2026-03-13
Describes how volunteer analysts helped study the way microbial biofilms adapt to spaceflight conditions, with implications for plant and human health during future missions.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-11-27
Summarizes a wide range of recent volunteer accomplishments, from discovering eclipsing binaries and ultracool stellar companions to mapping forests and observing atmospheric phenomena.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-07-16
Explores how participation in Exoplanet Watch can build technical skills, professional networks, scientific experience, and even career opportunities.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-04-29
A practical guide to NASA citizen science covering projects that can be done with phones, computers, backyard telescopes, field observations, and in-person research communities.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-03-19
Profiles a citizen scientist who became first author of a peer-reviewed astronomy paper after conducting original research with archival NASA data.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-03-06
Reports that Redshift Wranglers volunteers surpassed 200,000 galaxy classifications while helping researchers measure distances and study galaxy evolution.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2025-01-13
Describes 25 newly selected NASA citizen-science proposals and the next wave of public-participation projects across astronomy, planetary science, heliophysics, Earth science, and biology.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2024-10-08
Profiles four amateur astronomers whose work in NASA's Daily Minor Planet project was honored by naming asteroids after them.
| NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2024-08-15
Reports the Backyard Worlds discovery of a hypervelocity object moving fast enough to escape the Milky Way, identified with help from citizen scientists.
| Bill Dunford | NASA Science | 2018
Highlights several striking discoveries made with citizen participation, including new worlds, comets, unusual stellar behavior, and the auroral phenomenon STEVE.
Citizen Science Methods, Participation, and Program Design
Examines gender and participation within UK biodiversity-monitoring citizen-science programs, asking whose ecological labor is recognized and how project structures can reproduce inequalities.
| Fabian Mitze et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-08-27
Demonstrates how participatory environmental observations from remote tropical areas can improve bias correction in ERA5-Land temperature datasets where conventional weather stations are scarce.
| Georgia M. Ward et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-08-21
Combines community sampling with environmental DNA metabarcoding to document pond biodiversity through the GenePools project.
| Emese Gyöngyösi et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-08-20
Uses a citizen-science experiment to investigate whether leaf mould could provide a sustainable substitute for peat in vegetable seedling production.
| Christoph Samba Henrich et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-08-13
Evaluates community-based water monitoring in Tuvalu and asks whether locally gathered observations are successfully translated into environmental management decisions.
| Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-07-23
Examines the Reservoir Observer Student Scientists program and shows how reflection exercises and skill development can improve both learning and citizen-science data collection.
| Jack S. Nunn et al. | PLOS One | 2026-07-01
Presents ten recommendations for strengthening citizen science, including improved funding, participant recognition, ethics, training, transparency, accessibility, co-design, and greater integration of citizen science into research and public policy.
Explores co-creation, technology, and community ownership in rural Limpopo, South Africa, demonstrating why citizen participation should extend beyond simply providing observations.
| Ze Jin Gao & Wen Zhong Tang | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-05-28
Reviews advances and challenges in incorporating citizen science into China's national ecological-monitoring system and discusses opportunities for institutionalizing public participation.
Reviews the opportunities and difficulties that smartphones, databases, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies create for coordinators of animal-focused citizen-science projects.
| Jan E. Kath et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-03-02
Describes a citizen-science laboratory approach for measuring copper concentrations in drinking water and evaluates whether nonprofessional participants can produce meaningful chemical measurements.
| Caterina Cacciatori et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-02-24
Engages communities in screening hundreds of pesticides in Australia's Gellibrand River catchment, demonstrating how citizen involvement can expand chemical pollution surveillance.
| Daniela Rosero-López et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-02-02
Examines how Indigenous ecological knowledge can be incorporated into watershed and river-territory management in Ecuador's Andean-Amazon region.
| Elisabeth Theodoropoulos et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2026-01-09
Uses citizen science to search for microorganisms capable of degrading PLA bioplastic, showing how distributed experimentation can contribute to research on plastic composting.
| Elena von Benzon et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-11-26
Tests inexpensive colorimetric phosphate and nitrate kits used by citizen scientists and evaluates their reliability for monitoring river-water quality.
| Susan Hegarty, Laura Ribero & Fiona Regan | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-11-14
Provides a roadmap for training and retaining community volunteers who investigate freshwater pollution through the Urban Citizen 6.3.2 project in Dublin.
| Ramona Beltrán et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-11-03
Describes a community-based participatory research project involving residents affected by an oil refinery and explores approaches that give communities greater influence over environmental research.
| Laura Esbrí et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-10-29
Evaluates I-CHANGE Day events designed to involve citizens directly in climate observations, discussion, and action across participating communities.
Involves high-school students in co-creating urban decarbonization policy and carbon-pricing proposals, illustrating citizen science as a pathway into public decision-making.
| Caterina Cacciatori et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-08-20
Uses citizen-engaged sampling to screen for 230 pesticides in Kenya's Lake Naivasha catchment, expanding pollution data in an ecologically and economically important watershed.
Environmental Monitoring, Technology, and Data Quality
Uses GLOBE Observer tree measurements to validate continental-scale forest-canopy height maps produced from NASA's ICESat-2 and GEDI missions.
| Gabrielle Pengyu Shao & Isabel J. Bishop | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-07-15
Systematically reviews why citizen-science river-monitoring programs are created, which measurements they collect, and which methods work best for different monitoring goals.
| Robert J. W. Brewin et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-07-01
Develops smaller Secchi-disk methods that allow citizen scientists to measure water color and clarity in locations where traditional equipment is impractical.
| Siddhesh Mane et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-05-23
Develops an inexpensive handheld soil-moisture sensor intended for farmers and citizen scientists and evaluates its usefulness for distributed environmental monitoring.
| Silvia Gisondi et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-04-28
Analyzes eight years of volunteer observations targeting protected insect species and evaluates the benefits of maintaining long-running citizen-science monitoring programs.
| Jazmin Campos Zeballos et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-04-14
Evaluates participatory environmental monitoring in mountainous tourist regions and explores both the scientific value and practical limitations of volunteer observations.
| Priyanka deSouza et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-04-08
Conducts a nationwide evaluation of crowdsourced ambient-temperature measurements and investigates whether large networks of inexpensive sensors can complement official weather stations.
| Rachel R. Y. Oh et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-02-18
Investigates whether participation in nature-based citizen-science programs strengthens people's connection with nature and contributes to improved mental well-being.
| Carlos Cerrejón et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-01-07
Reviews citizen-science contributions to research on mosses, liverworts, lichens, and other inconspicuous organisms that are frequently underrepresented in biodiversity databases.
| Amanda E. Sorensen & Rebecca C. Jordan | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2025-01-03
Tests how the way researchers frame a citizen-science activity influences participant behavior, data collection, learning, and project outcomes.
| Marisa Westbrook et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-09-30
Examines community air-monitoring projects from the perspective of participants and argues that sensor programs need to account for people's actual patterns of pollution exposure.
| Bruno Andreas Walther et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-09-25
Citizen scientists surveying German coastlines document large spatial differences in mesoplastic and microplastic pollution and demonstrate the value of standardized public sampling.
Uses radon research as a case study for evaluating citizen-science projects and identifying measures of scientific quality, participation, learning, and social impact.
| Huilin Lin, Di Wu & Jintu Gu | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-08-26
Investigates whether participating in urban wildlife citizen science can increase residents' tolerance of raccoon dogs living in Shanghai.
| Rachel R. Y. Oh et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-08-21
Examines how biodiversity citizen-science programs might be intentionally designed to deliver health and well-being benefits alongside ecological data.
| Yaela N. Golumbic et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-08-20
Discusses the close relationship between citizen science and science communication and argues that participation can transform people from audiences into active contributors to research.
| Luigi Conte et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-08-16
Uses participatory action research with farmers in western Sicily to explore the practical opportunities and obstacles involved in shifting toward agroecological farming.
| Eleanor Starkey et al. | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-07-25
Compares community-led continuous water-quality monitoring pilots in Taiwan and the United Kingdom and identifies practical lessons for equipment, training, maintenance, and data management.
| P. Tiago, I. Evaristo & B. Pinto | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2024-02-21
Studies BioBlitz participants and experts to understand what makes short-term biodiversity inventories effective for science, education, and public engagement.
| Research team | Frontiers in Environmental Science | 2023
Examines Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch's shift toward a science-first model intended to improve data quality while retaining educational and community-engagement benefits.
Wildlife, Biodiversity, and Conservation Science
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2026
Examines whether including citizen-science information can increase stakeholder confidence in conservation-priority plans without substantially increasing conservation costs.
| Zsóka Vásárhelyi et al. | People and Nature | 2026
Analyzes more than 300,000 observations from 17 citizen-science projects and shows how population density, protected areas, education, age, and other factors can create participation biases.
| Space4Nature research team | People and Nature | 2026
Combines volunteer field surveys, satellite imagery, and machine learning to produce high-resolution maps of threatened lowland heathland habitats.
| Samantha K. Lowe et al. | Ecological Solutions and Evidence | 2025-12-26
Compares iNaturalist and eBird records with official Florida state-park species inventories and finds that citizen scientists add substantial numbers of species missed by agency surveys.
| F. J. Ong’ondo et al. | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2025-04-14
Uses Kenya Bird Map observations to model the distribution and abundance of bustards, storks, and harriers across Laikipia, the Maasai Mara, and Nairobi National Park.
| Peta S. Puskic, R. Holmberg & Rebecca R. McIntosh | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2024-09-06
Uses SealSpotter as a case study of how drone imagery and volunteer classifications can work together to monitor marine-mammal populations.
| Research team | PLOS One | 2022
Demonstrates how volunteers watching nest webcams can record prey deliveries to Lesser Spotted Eagles and generate detailed ecological information about raptor diets.
| GBIF Secretariat | Global Biodiversity Information Facility | 2021-10-19
Describes research using hundreds of thousands of iNaturalist observations to measure how species respond to urbanization across the Boston metropolitan region.
| Catherine C. Sun, Jeremy E. Hurst & Angela K. Fuller | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2021
Explains how citizen-science observations can be integrated with professional surveys and other datasets to produce stronger wildlife population estimates.
| Research team | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2020
Maps the geographic coverage of citizen-science projects monitoring threatened Australian species and identifies areas where volunteer programs can fill professional monitoring gaps.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2020
Investigates why people contribute to large conservation citizen-science projects and finds that concern for and curiosity about the environment are especially important motivations.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2020
Studies thousands of Christmas Bird Count volunteers and finds that conservation motivations become increasingly important as participants remain involved.
| Research team | PLOS One | 2019
Shows that long-running marine citizen-science surveys in Indonesia detected decade-scale changes in coral cover and reef-fish communities where professional monitoring was limited.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2018
Describes the three major benefits of environmental citizen science: generating scientific knowledge, creating learning opportunities, and encouraging civic participation.
| GBIF Secretariat | Global Biodiversity Information Facility | 2017-04-19
Summarizes evidence that citizen-science programs contribute heavily to global biodiversity databases while noting major geographic and taxonomic gaps in participation.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2017
Explores why many professional scientists remain hesitant to use citizen-science datasets and identifies data visibility, metadata, perceptions of quality, and sampling design as major barriers.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2017
Examines more than 100 citizen-science projects and argues that strong local connections and a sense of place can make volunteer data more useful for conservation decision-making.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2017
Reviews citizen-science programs operated by natural-history museums and finds evidence that they contribute to research, education, species management, and conservation policy.
| Research team | Biological Conservation | 2017
Reviews research at the intersection of citizen science and conservation and recommends stronger coordination, evaluation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and communication.
| Erin J. Theobald et al. | Biological Conservation | 2015
Estimates the enormous global contribution of biodiversity citizen scientists while arguing that much of the information they collect remains scientifically underused.
Community Science Organizations and Field Programs
| Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute | Smithsonian Institution | 2026
Explains how iNaturalist photographs submitted by ordinary observers can document rare behaviors and generate new scientific insights into tropical animals.
| NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries | NOAA | 2026
Reviews three decades of volunteer humpback-whale counts in Hawaiʻi and shows how sustained community participation expands the reach of professional monitoring.
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2026
Explains how communities near ports can use air sensors and participatory research to document pollution exposure and advocate for environmental improvements.
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2025-04-10
Summarizes recommendations for moving citizen-science information into environmental action, public-health protection, government partnerships, and policy.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2025
Provides a practical guide for organizing small BioBlitzes where scientists and volunteers inventory plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms in protected areas.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2022-04-19
Surveys citizen-science projects at National Park Service Research Learning Centers, including phenology, dragonflies, loons, mountain goats, monarchs, and intertidal organisms.
| NOAA Office for Coastal Management | NOAA | 2022
Highlights community-science projects involving flooding, coastal ecosystems, marine debris, water quality, and environmental mapping across the United States.
| Audubon Great Plains | National Audubon Society | 2019-05-16
Describes Climate Watch, in which volunteers survey selected bird species to test whether geographic ranges are shifting in the ways predicted by climate models.
| National Park Service | U.S. National Park Service | 2019-03-04
Explains how BioBlitzes, All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventories, and other volunteer programs help discover and document species in national parks.
| National Park Service | CitizenScience.gov | 2017
Profiles a Fort Vancouver archaeology program where volunteers learned surveying and excavation techniques while helping document military and fur-trade history.
| Andy Isaacson | Audubon Magazine | 2014
Profiles innovators who helped build large volunteer wildlife-monitoring programs and explores the long history of citizen science in North American conservation.
| Michele Berger | Audubon Magazine | 2013
Describes Guatemalan students using eBird to document cloud-forest birds while gaining practical experience in ecology and conservation.
| Xerces Society | Xerces Society | n.d.
Introduces major community-science programs for bumble bees, monarch butterflies, freshwater mussels, and other invertebrates whose observations directly support conservation work.
| Xerces Society | Xerces Society | n.d.
Describes volunteer monitoring programs for threatened pollinators and explains how observations from Bumble Bee Watch and regional bee atlases inform species protection.
| Xerces Society | Xerces Society | n.d.
Provides standardized methods that farmers, land managers, restoration practitioners, and community scientists can use to measure native-bee diversity and habitat quality.
| National Wildlife Federation | National Wildlife Federation | n.d.
Introduces citizen naturalists and explains how public observations, habitat projects, water monitoring, and other volunteer activities can contribute to wildlife research.
| NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries | NOAA | n.d.
Describes opportunities for volunteers to monitor whales, marine debris, seabirds, tide pools, water quality, and other resources throughout the National Marine Sanctuary System.
| NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries | Earth Is Blue Magazine | n.d.
Profiles volunteers monitoring beaches, seabirds, whales, intertidal ecosystems, and marine debris in national marine sanctuaries.
| Smithsonian Environmental Research Center | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Describes a long-running Smithsonian wetland project where volunteers count plants and process samples from experiments investigating carbon dioxide, nutrients, and marsh ecology.
| National Park Service | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Describes Glacier National Park volunteers who identify and map invasive plants along hundreds of miles of hiking trails so managers can respond before populations spread.
Marine Science, Earth Science, Public Health, and Emerging Applications
| Dhanya M. Lal et al. | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2026-08-26
Describes a multilingual smartphone application that enables Indian fishers to submit georeferenced catch observations for fisheries forecasting, science, and management.
| Angel Borja et al. | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2026-07-21
Reviews how machine learning, environmental DNA, and citizen science can be combined to monitor marine biodiversity and detect invasive species.
| Dércio Maoze et al. | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2026-04-27
Uses two decades of iNaturalist observations to analyze shark and ray diversity along Mozambique's coast and identify major sampling and marine-protection gaps.
| Eberhard Fritz / Max Planck Society | Phys.org | 2026-01-15
Reports research using more than 80 million citizen-generated plant observations to map fine-scale differences in temperature, moisture, soil disturbance, salinity, and other environmental conditions across European cities.
Describes an Antarctic citizen-science project in which travelers collect phytoplankton and water-quality measurements to study ecological changes associated with melting glaciers.
| Hatem H. Alsaqqa & Abdallah Alwawi | Frontiers in Public Health | 2025-07-30
Discusses citizen science as a public-health research strategy that can incorporate community knowledge, strengthen local research capacity, and make policies more responsive to public needs.
| NASA Science | NASA | 2024-08-16
Provides an overview of Earth-focused projects involving water quality, snow, glaciers, clouds, landslides, forests, penguins, coral reefs, birds, and other environmental observations.
| Nzula Kitaka et al. | Frontiers in Water | 2024-07-17
Reviews river biomonitoring in East Africa and explores how community-based monitoring and Water Resource Users Associations could expand environmental observations in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
| Research team | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2024-03-08
Finds that recreational anglers who participate in collaborative fisheries research can develop more favorable perceptions of marine protected areas.
Lists citizen-science projects suitable for students and educators across Earth science, astronomy, remote sensing, biology, and planetary science.
| Damon M. Hall et al. | BioScience | 2024
Argues that citizen science can become too focused on extracting data from participants and proposes a more reciprocal model that recognizes community expertise and returns tangible benefits to participants.
| Dilek Fraisl et al. | Frontiers in Public Health | 2023-08-09
Examines how citizen-science data could help monitor health-related Sustainable Development Goals and the World Health Organization's Triple Billion Targets.
| Carlos Garcia-Soto et al. | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2021-03-24
Reviews European marine citizen science and the growing role of smartphones, online platforms, sensors, artificial intelligence, and other technologies in ocean monitoring.
| Smithsonian Environmental Research Center & City College of New York | CitizenScience.gov | 2021
Describes Chesapeake Water Watch, which combines smartphone water observations with satellite remote sensing to improve monitoring across Chesapeake Bay.
| CitizenScience.gov | NASA / GLOBE | n.d.
Explains how students and community observers measure soil moisture on the ground to help validate NASA satellite measurements and improve understanding of droughts, floods, agriculture, and climate.
| CitizenScience.gov | NOAA | n.d.
Provides a large catalog of NOAA-supported public-science programs covering weather, whales, sea turtles, fisheries, marine debris, harmful algal blooms, water quality, and coastal monitoring.
| CitizenScience.gov | U.S. Geological Survey | n.d.
Lists dozens of USGS citizen-science projects covering earthquakes, invasive species, amphibians, birds, phenology, landslides, wildlife health, hydrology, and environmental change.
| CitizenScience.gov | NASA | n.d.
Catalogs NASA-supported projects involving exoplanets, asteroids, auroras, clouds, penguins, landslides, forest monitoring, solar activity, and many other research areas.
| Zooniverse | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Profiles Zooniverse, the large online research platform where volunteers classify images, transcribe documents, identify organisms, examine astronomical data, and analyze scientific datasets.
| CitSci.org | CitizenScience.gov | n.d.
Describes a global platform that allows researchers and communities to build citizen-science projects and collect observations across ecology, health, agriculture, geography, archaeology, and other fields.
