List of citizen science projects

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This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Citizen science projects are activities sponsored by a wide variety of organizations so non-scientists can meaningfully contribute to scientific research.

Contents

Precis

Activities vary widely from transcribing old ship logbooks to digitize the data as part of the Old Weather project to observing and counting birds at home or in the field for eBird. [1] [2] Participation can be as simple as playing a computer game for a project called Eyewire that may help scientists learn more about retinal neurons. [3] It can also be more in depth, such as when citizens collect water quality data over time to assess the health of local waters, or help discover and name new species of insects. [4] [5] An emerging branch of Citizen Science are Community Mapping projects that utilize smartphone and tablet technology. For example, TurtleSAT [6] is a community mapping project that is mapping freshwater turtle deaths throughout Australia.

This list of citizen science projects involves projects that engage all age groups. There are projects specifically aimed at the younger age demographic like iTechExplorers [7] which was created by a 14 year old in the UK to assess the effects of bedtime technology on the body's circadian rhythm and can be completed in a classroom setting. Other projects like AgeGuess [8] focus on the senior demographics and enable the elderly to upload photos of themselves so the public can guess different ages.

Lists of citizen science projects may change. For example, the Old Weather project website indicates that as of January 10, 2015, 51% of the logs were completed. [9] When that project reaches 100 percent, it will move to the completed list.

Worldwide

Citizen scientists anywhere in the world can participate in these projects.

StartEndProject nameDiscipline(s)Sponsoring organization(s)Notes
2019 [10] 2020Hubble Asteroid Hunters Astronomy Zooniverse, ESA ESDC Research Paper, Zooniverse
20112012Ice Investigators [note 1] Astronomy CosmoQuest.org [note 2]
20112012Moon Mappers: Million crater challenge [note 3] Planetary Astronomy CosmoQuest.org [note 2]
2018Ongoing Mosquito Alert Public Health Unknown
2022ongoingSpritacular Meteorology NASA, Catholic University of America
2022ongoingJovian Vortex Hunter Astronomy NASA, Southwest Research Institute, Zooniverse
2023ongoingDeciphering Secrets: Unlocking the Manuscripts of Medieval Spain History University of Colorado, Zooniverse, University of Madrid, European Union's Seventh FPRTD
2022ongoingCloudspotting On Mars Astronomy, Planetary Research, Weather NASA, Zooniverse
2023ongoing The Daily Minor Planet Astronomy, Minor Planet Research, Asteroids NASA, Zooniverse

Regional

These projects require that citizen scientists be local to a region of study.

Asia

StartEndProject nameDiscipline(s)Sponsoring organization(s)Country (or region)Notes
1957ongoingHong Kong Birdwatching Society Biodiversity [11] UnknownHong Kong
1993ongoingBird Conservation Society of Thailand Biodiversity [12] IUCN, Toyota Thailand
20122012 Citizen Sparrow Ornithology Bombay Natural History Society India
2012UnknownFLOAT Beijing Air Quality, Environmental science [13] Black Rock Arts Foundation, AWESOME Foundation China
2012ongoingWildMentor Biodiversity [14] UnknownBangladesh
2015ongoingBauhinia Genome Biodiversity [15] UnknownHong Kong
20172020Respirer Living Sciences Air Quality, Environmental science IIT Kanpur, Shaki Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF)India
2017UnknownAirBox Air Quality, Environmental science [16] UnknownTaiwan and South
20182021CleanAir Air Quality, Environmental science [17] American University of Yangon (Connect University), Phandeeyar Myammar
2019Un­knownDustBoy Air Quality, Environmental science [18] Un­knownThailand
2020UnknownPakAirQuality Air Quality, Environmental science, Public Health, Urban Planning [19] Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong and Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, China.Pakistan
2021ongoingHong Kong Jellyfish Project Biodiversity [20] UnknownHong Kong
2021ongoingHerptile Roadkill Study (Project Runover) Herpetology, Roadkill, Habitat fragmentation Environmental science Herpetological Society of Singapore Singapore

Australasia

StartEndProject nameDiscipline(s)Sponsoring organization(s)Country (or region)Notes
20102010Big Sleep Survey Sleep National Science Week Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation AustraliaBig Sleep Survey
20162016South Australia Great Koala Count 2 Ecology Discovery Circle, University of South Australia, University of Adelaide South Australia
20112011The Multi-tasking Test Cognitive science National Science Week Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Queensland Brain InstituteAustraliaMulti-tasking Test
20152015Peninsular Malaysia Butterfly Count Lepidoptery Museum of Zoology, University of Malaya MalaysiaResults published [21]
20122012Sound Check Australia Audiology National Science Week Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, National Acoustic LaboratoriesAustraliaSound Check Australia
20012010Value of Patient TestimonyPublic Health ResearchCase Health Pty Ltd

Outcomes: (1) eBook: 'Those Who Suffer Much, Know Much' 2010 https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/aest/20100925000000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/104801/20100925-0000/2010.pdf (2) Spurred significant increase in scientific research into LDN (low dose naltrexone) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low-dose+naltrexone%22%5BALL+FIELDS%5D+NOT+(dependence%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(dependent%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(oxycodone%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(withdrawal%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(cocaine%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(morphine%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(itch-related%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(drinking%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(alcohol%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(cigarette%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(smoker%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(smoking%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(smokers%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(nicotine%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(detoxification%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(gambling%5BTitle%5D)+NOT+(self-biting%5BTitle%5D)

AustraliaSpurred dramatic increase in scientific research

Europe

StartEndProject nameDiscipline(s)Sponsoring organization(s)Country (or region)Notes
20092013BBC Lab UK Psychology BBC, BBC UKDiscontinued in 2018, see BBC Lab UK
1979ongoingBig Garden Birdwatch Ornithology Royal Society for the Protection of Birds UKCited to be the world's largest citizen science project [22]

North America

StartEndProject nameDiscipline(s)Sponsoring organization(s)Country (or region)Notes
19972007Birdhouse Network Ornithology Cornell Lab of Ornithology US [note 4]
19942011House Finch Disease Survey Ornithology Cornell Lab of Ornithology North America [note 5]
20102014Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas Herpetology Natural History Society of Maryland, Inc., Maryland Department of Natural ResourcesUS (MD)
20152015McMaster Postcard Project [23] Archives, Social Science, History William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster University Library CanadaMcMaster Postcard Project
2023ongoingVolunteer Water Quality Monitoring at Elkhorn Slough Water Quality, Environment NOAA, California Fish and Wildlife, Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Monterey County Consolidated Chemistry Lab, Zooniverse California

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Formerly Ice Hunters, a project to identify potential targets in the Kuiper belt for the New Horizons spacecraft after it completes its mission to Pluto.
  2. 1 2 CosmoQuest is sponsored by NASA in partnership with the Astrosphere New Media Association, the STEM Center, UniverseToday, Astronomers without Borders, the Planetary Society, the Ward Beecher Planetarium, the Galileo Teachers Training Program, Swinburne Astronomy Online, Dark Skies, Bright Kids, the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre and its member organizations, the Galileoscope Project and several NASA projects.
  3. ↑ Over a million craters were identified and mapped in late 2012. As of March 2012, 1,207,486 craters have been identified and mapped by the Moon Mappers parent project that continues.
  4. ↑ Formerly The Birdhouse Network which only monitored nests in bird boxes and similar artificial cavities. NestWatch is a new project that collects observations of open nests as well.
  5. ↑ Per the project website, this project was absorbed into the current FeederWatch project.

References

  1. ↑ Mapes, Lynda V. (February 16, 2013). "Citizen scientists can be climate sleuths too". Seattle Times. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
  2. ↑ Robbins, Jim (August 19, 2013). "Crowdsourcing, for the birds". New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2014.
  3. ↑ "Update: EyeWire". Scientific American. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
  4. ↑ Schilthuizen, Menno; Seip, Lilian; Otani, Sean; Suhaimi, Jadda; Njunjić, Iva (2017-06-12). "Three new minute leaf litter beetles discovered by citizen scientists in Maliau Basin, Malaysian Borneo (Coleoptera: Leiodidae, Chrysomelidae)". Biodiversity Data Journal. 5 (5): e21947. doi: 10.3897/bdj.5.e21947 . ISSN   1314-2828. PMC   5740419 . PMID   29308046.
  5. ↑ "National Monitoring Network of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council".
  6. ↑ "TurtleSAT Community Program > Home".
  7. ↑ "iTech Explorers". SciStarter. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  8. ↑ "AgeGuess". SciStarter. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  9. ↑ "old Weather". Zooniverse. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  10. ↑ Kruk, Sandor; Martín, Pablo García; Popescu, Marcel; Merín, Bruno; Mahlke, Max; Carry, Benoît; Thomson, Ross; Karadağ, Samet; Durán, Javier; Racero, Elena; Giordano, Fabrizio; Baines, Deborah; Marchi, Guido de; Laureijs, René (2022-05-01). "Hubble Asteroid Hunter - I. Identifying asteroid trails in Hubble Space Telescope images". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 661: A85. arXiv: 2202.00246 . Bibcode:2022A&A...661A..85K. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202142998. ISSN   0004-6361. S2CID   241469611.
  11. ↑ "香港觀鳥會 Hong Kong Bird Watching Society". www.hkbws.org.hk. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  12. ↑ "BCST_Home – Bird Conservation Society of Thailand" . Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  13. ↑ Citzen Science. UCL Press. 2018-10-15. doi:10.14324/111.9781787352339. ISBN   978-1-78735-233-9.
  14. ↑ "Wild Mentor". www.wildmentor.org. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  15. ↑ "Unique project to sequence the genome of the Hong Kong bauhinia tree". South China Morning Post. 2015-11-07. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  16. ↑ Chen, Ling-Jyh; Ho, Yao-Hua; Lee, Hu-Cheng; Wu, Hsuan-Cho; Liu, Hao-Min; Hsieh, Hsin-Hung; Huang, Yu-Te; Lung, Shih-Chun Candice (2017). "An Open Framework for Participatory PM2.5 Monitoring in Smart Cities". IEEE Access. 5: 14441–14454. Bibcode:2017IEEEA...514441C. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2723919 . ISSN   2169-3536.
  17. ↑ "Clean Air Myanmar | Air Quality Yangon". CLEAN AIR MYANMAR. Archived from the original on 2023-02-09. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  18. ↑ Supasri, Titaporn; Sampattagul, Sate (July 2019). "Haze Problem in the North of Thailand and DustBoy PM 2.5 Monitoring Systems". ResearchGate.
  19. ↑ Shi, Yuan; Bilal, Muhammad; Ho, Hung Chak; Omar, Abid (2020-11-01). "Urbanization and regional air pollution across South Asian developing countries – A nationwide land use regression for ambient PM2.5 assessment in Pakistan" . Environmental Pollution. 266 (Pt 2) 115145. Bibcode:2020EPoll.26615145S. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115145. ISSN   0269-7491. PMID   32663727.
  20. ↑ "HOME | Hong Kong Jellyfish Project". HKJP. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
  21. ↑ Wilson, John-James; Jisming-See, Shi-Wei; Brandon-Mong, Guo-Jie; Lim, Aik-Hean; Lim, Voon-Ching; Lee, Ping-Shin; Sing, Kong-Wah (2015-11-12). "Citizen Science: The First Peninsular Malaysia Butterfly Count". Biodiversity Data Journal. 3 (3): e7159. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e7159 . ISSN   1314-2828. PMC   4700385 . PMID   26751033.
  22. ↑ "RSPB History: From Humble Beginnings to Thriving Today". www.rspb.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
  23. ↑ Thompson, Nicole (27 Aug 2015). "McMaster crowd-sources archival postcard project". Hamilton Spectator. Retrieved 27 Aug 2015.
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