5 projects that made a difference
- Written by Signe Dean, Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation
Scientists can’t be everywhere all at once, as much as they’d like to. Many of the problems citizen science helps solve are concerned with spreading the net wider – or getting more helping hands on the task.
Biosecurity managers can’t make it to every regional town in their state. But if members of the public report suspicious species, such as through the popular iNaturalist app, they can take action.
Astronomers need more eyes to sift through vast databases of stellar explosions. Climate scientists can learn from our history, but deciphering the records takes time.
Below we introduce five citizen science projects where large numbers of people have contributed impactful results, or yielded new knowledge. Some of them even have new project stages you may be able to participate in.
Climate History Australia
Linden Ashcroft, Senior Lecturer, Climate Science and Science Communication, University of Melbourne
There are millions of valuable weather observations scattered across the world that only exist on paper. It would take thousands of lifetimes for scientists to transcribe these precious records on their own.
But with the help of citizen scientists, we’ve been able to rescue these vital observations from being lost to time. The data they provide have improved the coverage and accuracy of global data models used to understand how our climate is changing.
Climate History Australia was modelled on similar projects from the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Scanned images of historical weather data from the National Archives were split into chunks, allowing people to help us rescue these observations in a manageable way at home.
Across two projects in 2020 and 2021, more than 1,700 citizen scientists transcribed at least 67,400 weather observations recorded in the 19th century. The journals contained meticulous weather data including descriptions of the clouds, type of rainfall, and other activities of the day. The project attracted amazing volunteers, including students, historians, and people who wanted to contribute to climate science.
Thanks to the recovered data, we have now filled gaps in weather observations in Adelaide and Perth, allowing us to build near-continuous records of the weather of these two cities back to 1830 and 1843 respectively. We now know more about extreme weather events in Australia, which is so important because changes in the extremes are what will affect us the most as the world warms.
The rescued data have also fed into global weather and climate datasets, improving our understanding of weather and climate change in the entire Southern Hemisphere. While there are no active Climate History Australia data rescue projects, similar activities are happening in Ireland, Africa and Italy.
Kilonova Seekers
Duncan Galloway, Associate Professor in Astrophysics, Monash University
Since 2023, the Kilonova Seekers citizen astronomy project has been sharing the excitement of transient astronomy, engaging citizen scientists in the discovery of some of the most exciting and energetic events in the universe.
Transient astronomy refers broadly to the study of cosmic objects that vary with time. Many types of normal stars, particularly those that have an orbiting companion, vary in brightness.
But of particular interest are short-lived explosive events that produce gamma-ray bursts, such as the supernova explosions of massive stars, or rare collisions between pairs of neutron stars.
Kilonova Seekers provides observations from the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) telescope network to members of the public. GOTO collaboration members Lisa Kelsey from the University of Cambridge and Tom Killestein from the University of Warwick built an image comparison platform on the popular Zooniverse website.
To contribute, participants were invited to play “spot the difference” by comparing new images to old and looking for changes. This work helps astronomers to distinguish genuine new objects in the sky from imaging artefacts and other spurious signals.
Animation of the GOTO0650 outburst, made from GOTO’s all-sky survey images.
GOTO, T. Killestein, University of Warwick and K. Ulaczyk
The project has attracted thousands of volunteer observers and yielded more than 200 discoveries to date. A major discovery was published last year – an extremely bright star explosion, GOTO0650, captured as it took place. Once flagged, astronomers were able to look at it more closely with Earth-based and space observatories. The object was so bright, amateur astronomers could capture high-quality images, too.
Kilonova Seekers has just gone through a hardware and software upgrade and relaunched in February this year – so you too can have a hand in trying to discover new objects in space.
Mozzie Monitors
Craig Williams, Professor and Dean of Programs (STEM), Adelaide University
Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal. It’s crucial for health departments and local governments to keep up mosquito surveillance to protect public health. But it takes a lot of resources to do so, leading to gaps in the system.
Launched by the University of South Australia in 2018, the Mozzie Monitors program comprised two main activities citizen scientists could help with. The first was setting low-tech mosquito traps at home and taking photos of the collections so experts could identify them remotely. The second was submitting mosquito images to the project page on the iNaturalist platform. It has been an amazing collaborative effort nationwide, with thousands of records submitted.
Originally, the program aimed to expand mosquito surveillance in Australia, detect exotic mosquitoes entering the country, and educate the public about mosquitoes and the diseases they carry.
It has since evolved to assisting remote communities in exotic mosquito surveillance, tracking mosquito-borne viruses, and running an education program in South Australian and Northern Territory schools. Hundreds of students aged 5–17 have participated in learning activities and even trapped some mosquitoes.
We designed and built Mozzie Monitors as we went along. It’s led to new mosquito trapping methods citizen scientists can use, has taught the participants a lot about mosquitoes, helped to establish a mosquito database with new species records, and even led to the discovery of mosquitoes not previously known to be in Australia.
The project continues to grow and evolve. In the Northern Territory, the small town of Tennant Creek has experienced repeated invasions of exotic dengue mosquitoes. Currently, readers in the Northern Territory anywhere between Katherine and Alice Springs, can become involved in Mozzie Monitors Tennant Creek. While Tennant Creek is the focus, we would dearly love to have participants across the region.
Citizen scientists on iNaturalist can report observations of exotic mosquitoes, such as Aedes aegypti which carries dengue.
grace-murray/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC
WomSAT: Wombat Survey and Analysis Tool
Julie Old, Associate Professor in Biology, Zoology and Animal Science, Western Sydney University
Hayley Stannard, Associate Professor in Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Charles Sturt University
Wombats are ecological engineers – they dig burrows to sleep in during the day and protect them from predators, but these burrows also provide shelter for other animals. Turning over the soil when they dig their burrows also helps plants grow, moving nutrients and water through the soil.
Due to their importance to ecosystems, there is a need to understand more about wombats and where they live, so that we can manage threats and aid their conservation. Sadly, wombats are at risk from several threats – these include collisions with vehicles, a devastating disease called sarcoptic mange, and habitat loss.
Started in 2015, WomSAT is a citizen science program that allows the public, researchers and wildlife carers to record evidence of wombats across Australia. It collects real-time data on wombat sightings – dead or alive, the location of their burrows, and whether they appear to be affected by mange. Wildlife carers also use WomSAT to track the treatment of sarcoptic mange.
To date, the impacts have been significant: WomSAT has been pivotal to determining roadkill hotspots and tracking sarcoptic mange, and even the factors that affect mange occurrence. In collaboration with the Wombat Protection Society of Australia, the project also created online training courses for the public who have an interest in wombats and wish to learn more, and for wildlife carers on how to safely treat sarcoptic mange in the field.
WomSAT is an ongoing project. Anyone can become a “wombat warrior” by logging sightings of wombats on WomSAT to help identify roadkill hotspots and track the occurrence of sarcoptic mange. You can also follow #WombatWednesday on social media.
Authors: Signe Dean, Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation
