What is community science? Essentially, it’s crowdsourced science – scientists recruit community volunteers to collect data for research projects. It’s an opportunity to get involved in adding to publicly available knowledge of the world around us. Community science is sometimes called “citizen science,” but citizenship is not a requirement. You are welcome and encouraged to participate in real science projects across different disciplines, no matter your identity or background.
If you’re new to community science, start with SciStarter: this is a great catalog of projects where you can pick projects that fit your interests and abilities, while assisting real scientists. My favorite projects to contribute to are iNaturalist, CalFlora, and eBird, though there are plenty more to choose from.
iNaturalist is a community science platform that collects biodiversity data points from around the globe. Observations on iNaturalist that have a specified location, date, time, photographic evidence, and multiple species-level identifications from the community are considered "Research Grade" and are added to other biodiversity databases like GBIF and CalFlora. iNaturalist has even led to discovering new species - and tools like this rely on community-sourced observations. I guest-hosted three webinars on iNaturalist Basics with the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. They can be accessed here:
For a more formal introduction to participatory science, I recommend the California Naturalist course offered through many partner organizations across the state. They also offer a climate stewardship course, more information on both here! I received my California Naturalist certification in 2019, and it provided a great introduction to community science and California natural history. |