Program on the Environment

Citizen Science in America is an avenue for scientist and volunteers to collaborate and get community members involved in research. I took a dive into the field of citizen science to get a better understanding of why people get involved in these projects and how to recruit other community members. The goals of this study were to get a better understanding of citizen scientists, to learn about retention in programs, and why people get involved in the first place. There was two parts to the project, the internship which included field work such as collecting data with participants and going to all of events hosted by my host organization. Paired with the facilitation of interviews with hosts of other citizen science programs. One of the main findings were that people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, such as being involved in a community or contributing data to research. The more we know about participants the easier it is to cater to them and make it an encouraging environment to return.