Recently in Citizen Science

There has been a lot of citizen science happening at the Museum lately!  Some recent highlights include…

Cheese Alive! has officially launched!  This project looks at the bacteria that make up your favorite cheeses and assesses people’s cheese preferences to see whether their ancestry drives their tastes.  You can participate in Cheese Alive! three ways.  First, consider taking the project survey to tell us about which cheeses you particularly love so we can see if tastes correlates with ancestry.  Second, we need cheese samples!  Have an interesting cheese you love that you’d like to see added to our bacterial analysis?  You can drop cheese off at the Museum and we’ll add your donation to our study.  Or, three, if you have a favorite cheese, but don’t want to drop it off, a donation to the Genomics and Microbiology Research Lab with a comment about which cheese you’d like to see added will help us feature your favorite(s) in the study.  Learn more or participate in the project online here.

CitSciScribe just launched 5 new herpetology themed projects for your transcription pleasure!  CitSciScribe will also be a featured project in the WeDigBio international citizen science data transcription event again this year, so look out for news about when and where you can connect with our scientists in person during this event.  You can participate from any computer anywhere, however!  Simply log in to your CitSciScribe account and complete some transcriptions October 19-22 and you’ll earn a special WeDigBio badge.

The Dragonfly Detectives participants (4th-8th graders) had a marvelous time showing off their research and their dragonfly knowledge at September’s BugFest!  Their study organisms fit the dragonfly theme perfectly and our kids got to talk to thousands of visitors during the event.  We love to see young people showing off their research, an important part of science that we’re thrilled they’re able to take part in!

Take a Child Outside week was a success again this year, and visitors got their kids involved in citizen science during Citizen Science Saturday at Prairie Ridge.  Our TACO attendees enjoyed a bird walk with a birding expert and were able to see several species of birds on their walk.

And finally, our citizen science programs have been featured at several recent and upcoming conferences and events!  Dragonfly Detectives was featured in a talk at BugFest and attendees learned about Natural North Carolina at the recent Environmental Educators of NC meeting.  Natural North Carolina was also featured at the Natural Learning Initiative’s Annual Design Institute.  At the upcoming Association of Science and Technology centers, we’re highlighting CitSciScribe, eMammal/Candid Critters, and Dragonfly Detectives during a pre-conference workshop and a conference session.  It’s always great to talk about the amazing work of our citizen scientists so the rest of the world can learn from what YOU have helped us achieve!

We’re always working to bring you more projects and more ways to get involved in scientific research at the Museum!  Thanks for all of your hard work and help so far and we look forward to inviting you to participate in many future projects.