Being a scientist no longer has to mean years of schooling and dozens of science classes. Citizen scientists, from elementary school children to retirees, are taking to the field and collecting data – and observing environmental changes that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Citizen scientists conduct or contribute to data collection for which university researchers and government officials do not have the funds or manpower. But organizers of research projects emphasize that the volunteers are not just a set of hands, as their work contributes to long-term conservation efforts and may even affect policy decisions.
“We?re trying to give people an idea of the diversity of things they don?t normally think about,” said Mara McDonald, assistant administrator at the Laboratory of Genetics and the J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who coordinates a volunteer bird banding program in Madison.