Skip to main content Skip to footer unit links
← Back to all capstone projects
2016 Autumn | Arts & Humanities, Education & Outreach, Sustainability

Confidence and efficacy of citizen scientists

Student(s):

Ian Anderson

Program or Department(s):

  • Program on the Environment
  • University of Washington

Site supervisor(s):

Jeff Adams

Partner(s):

  • Washington Sea Grant

Faculty advisor(s):

Kristi Straus, Program of the Environment, University of Washington

Over the summer I observed volunteers trying to find invasive green crabs for the Washington Sea Grant. I was motivated to do this project because I thought it would good for me to do something I’m passionate about. I observed for how effective and confident they were. Then, they were graded on performance, such as crab/ molt identification, and trap setting. There were surveys the volunteers took pre/post field work. These were mainly to gauge volunteer confidence and their opinion of the organization. I then went and analyzed this in my synthesis, trying to compare it to other citizen science projects.