Scientists Acknowledge Crucial Role of Volunteers in Advancing Research

Reprinted from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Young people participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count citizen-science project, held over four days each February. Photo by Christine Bartholomew.

Amateur naturalists and hobbyists are getting their due today after more than a century of volunteering for bird counts and other studies. An article in the top journal Science recognizes these “citizen scientists” as crucial contributors whose work can stand on equal footing with professional science. Lead author Rick Bonney, director of program development and evaluation at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, notes that it’s uniquely human talents like passion, curiosity, and perception that make citizen scientists indispensable sources of data and insight.

Bonney says:

"For most of history science was something people did as amateurs or hobbyists, but in the twentieth century it became a very specialized profession. Today the doors have been thrown open again. Anyone can be the eyes and ears on the ground, collecting data that even the most sophisticated instruments can’t."

"It’s people in their backyards looking at flowers and looking at birds, but it’s way bigger than that, too. There are well over a million citizen scientists solving real-world problems: figuring out protein structures; transcribing the writing on ancient scrolls. People are studying genes to galaxies and everything in between."

"We’re seeing participation growing exponentially, and that’s largely because of the Internet. Online tools and especially smartphones are really clearing away the barriers to participation. Social media makes it easy to find new opportunities, including for communities who previously haven’t had the means to get involved."

"Citizen science appeals to people’s innate curiosity, and also to their desire to make the world a better place. It adds meaning and value to their hobbies, and gives them a way to contribute to social or environmental causes."

NOTE: The news appears as a policy paper in the journal Science by Bonney and coauthors Jennifer Shirk, Tina Phillips, and Andrea Wiggins of the Cornell Lab; Heidi Ballard of the University of California, Davis; Abraham Miller-Rushing of the National Park Service; and Julia Parrish of the University of Washington.