Darlene Cavalier presented this at the Humanity Plus Summit at Harvard on 6/12/10. Citizen Science: overview, demographics, news.

1. Disrupting Science! (in a good way) Humanity + Summit @ Harvard: Rise of the Citizen Scientist Darlene Cavalier Science For Citizens http: //scienceforcitizens .net

2. Common Misconception (among scientists)

3. What is a Citizen Scientist?

5. Who are Citizen Scientists? MOST CITIZEN SCIENTISTS ARE GEN JONERS: who have an “aching to act.”

7. Online data analysis citizen scientists Demographics: avg age 43 yrs old; 80/20 men/women; 28% hold Masters degree+; 29% hold Bachelors #1 reason these 250,000+ people volunteer to sort through images of galaxies? “ To contribute to research.” Source: Jordan Raddick (JHU), Galaxy Zoo survey: “Why do people become citizen scientists?”

8. Why now? Internet makes it easy to obtain and share information Instrumentation is cheaper, more accessible Mobile smart phones: GPS, digital photography, microscopes, sensors Open data

9. Impact? Peer reviewed papers Discoveries: Amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley, discovered a hole in Jupiter’s atmosphere, the size of the Earth! At least three citizen scientists played key roles in what has become known as Climategate. Six-year-old Alyson Yates and her mom, Kate, discovered a rare nine-spotted ladybug while taking part in Cornell University’s Lost Ladybug citizen science project. By running DNA tests, teenagers in NYC found a new breed of cockroach and discovered food labels lie.

10. Impact? White House Increasing number of published papers Field of academic study Policy: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology Public Understanding of Science

11. Buzz The NY Academy of Sciences: The Growth of Citizen Science The New York Times: A New Kind of Big Science O’Reilly Report: Citizen Science and Urban Sensing TreeHugger: The Big Deal with Citizen Science Education.com: Citizen Science benefits to children Seed Magazine: Creating Citizen Scientists CNN Citizen Science and Climate Change And many more.

15. Harnessing the power of America’s greatest resource, to improve our world.