Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel, discovered the strange green "voorwerp" (Dutch for "object") in 2007. (Photo: NASA)

What does it mean to think scientifically?

If you asked me this question when I first moved back to New York three years ago, I’m quite positive I would have said something like, “What do I know? I’m not a scientist,” and pointed the questioner in the direction of the nearest pocket-protecting nerd in the vicinity.

Science was never one of my best subjects (I can still remember my high school physics teacher, Dr. Moroni, speeding out of the parking lot in his Pontiac Aztek to avoid telling me that I had failed the final exam). In fact, it was the very last thing I thought I would get involved in upon settling into my artsy Brooklyn neighborhood in 2008 to write my first novel. However, since my discovery of citizen science through the Earthwatch Institute and WildMetro, I now consider myself an unofficial member of the super hip NYC science community, whose events on such sexy topics as the dark matter and neuroscience are more likely to be full of trendy 30-somethings sipping beer out of plastic cups than pale, lab coat wearing individuals with microscope indentations around their eyes.

To begin a journey into the realm of the scientific mind, let’s go back in time about 177 years ago, when the word “scientist” first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary. Before this transitional moment in human history, people we would now think of as scientists were called “natural philosophers” – those who studied the workings of nature. Some of these philosophers, such as Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Michael Faraday, had little formal training in their chosen subjects, but came to learn about science through a personal desire to come up with answers to their individual questions about the universe. Science was less a profession or an academic field as it was a way of thinking about the world and understanding its mysteries through direct observation.

In some ways, the study of science was more accessible two hundred years ago than it is in today’s science classrooms, where students are typically tested on their ability to remember the answers to hundreds of questions that have already been answered, rather than being encouraged to look up at the sky or at a blade of grass and come up with questions of their own.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes you just have to get started...

During the past week, I’ve experienced nature from a state of semiconsciousness in my bed. Almost every morning, the same lonely male cardinal practices his songs for spring, occasionally interrupted by a pair of blue jays imitating a hawk or a small flock of monk parakeets flying overhead from their nests.

There’s something special about doing citizen science from your bedroom with your eyes closed – even if I have yet to find a project that will accept data that is taken while you’re half-asleep.

A couple of days ago, I had a brilliant idea: citizen science from the comfort of my bed! I can count the stars, peer through my window at birds (which has the additional benefit of freaking out the neighbors), and measure snow accumulating on my fire escape – all without experiencing the February cold!

I tried this for a couple of hours one morning, attempting to conduct as many scientific experiments as possible from my 8×4 foot bedroom. Yet, something was missing from the experience. I found myself getting bored and my mind floating between the unread emails in my inbox and the uneaten chocolate in the refrigerator. So, the next morning, I threw on some warm clothes, filled up a travel mug with hot coffee, and headed over to Prospect Park to figure out what was missing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Which citizen science projects in our Project Finder were the most visited in 2010? Check out the top 10! Is your favorite on this list? If not, tell us about your favorite citizen science project(s) on your very own (free) member blog!

10. Foldit: Solve Protein Puzzles for Science

Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research. Researchers are collecting data to find out if humans’ pattern-recognition and puzzle-solving abilities make them more efficient than existing computer programs at pattern-folding tasks. If this turns out to be true, researchers can then teach human strategies to computers and fold proteins faster than ever!

9. REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project
Keep track of the fish you see while scuba diving or snorkeling, and submit those observations to an online database. You can start anytime, with or without a training class, as long as you can POSITIVELY identify the fish you see. This is a worldwide program for Pacific Coast, Tropical Eastern Pacific, Tropical Western Atlantic, Hawaii, and northeast U.S. and Canada.

8. Project Squirrel

Project Squirrel is calling all citizen scientists to count the number of squirrels in their neighborhoods and report their findings. The goal is to understand urban squirrel biology, including everything from squirrels to migratory birds, nocturnal mammals, and secretive reptiles and amphibians. To gain data on squirrel populations across the United States, citizen scientists will also be asked, when possible, to distinguish between two different types of tree squirrels – gray and fox. Anyone can participate in Project Squirrel!

7. Moon Zoo
Moon Zoo invites you to help astronomers count and analyze craters and boulders on the surface of the moon. You will examine images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which show the lunar surface in remarkable detail, including features as small as about one and a half feet across. While exploring the lunar surface, who knows what else you might find.

6. Texas Bee Watchers: 52 Gardens, 52 Weeks

Texas Bee Watchers aims to increase awareness and knowledge of native bees in Texas. In 2010, the Bee Watchers are challenging Texans to plant 52 Bee Gardens in 52 Weeks. To watch native bees, you only need to find some blooming plants. Once you see these hard-working insects, you may want to try catching a few native bees with a net, cooling them down in an ice chest, and looking at them close-up. Or maybe you’ll want to practice your photo skills and photograph them? Sounds fun? It is!

5. Sound Around You Project

The Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford is building a sound map of the world as part of a new study into how sounds in our everyday environment make us feel. They’re asking people across the world to use their mobile phones (or another audio recording device if their phone is not compatible) to record 10 to 15 second clips from different sound environments, or “soundscapes”–anything from the inside of a family car to a busy shopping center. Then, volunteers upload the clips to a virtual map, along with their opinions of the sounds and why they chose to record those particular sounds.

4. Stardust@Home

Join Stardust@Home in the search for interstellar dust!  On January 15, 2006, the Stardust spacecraft’s sample return capsule parachuted gently onto the Utah desert. Nestled within the capsule were precious particles collected during Stardust’s dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 in January of 2004; and something else, even rarer and no less precious: tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away. Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth!

3. Gravestone Project

Help researchers map the location of graveyards around the globe and then use marble gravestones in those graveyards to measure the weathering rate of marble at that location. The weathering rates of gravestones are an indication of changes in the acidity of rainfall between locations and over time. The acidity is affected by air pollution and other factors, and could be used as a measure of changes in climate and pollution levels.

2. Firefly Watch

Firefly Watch combines an annual summer evening ritual with scientific research. Boston’s Museum of Science has teamed up with researchers from Tufts University and Fitchburg State College to track the fate of these amazing insects. With your help, the project aims to learn about the geographic distribution of fireflies and their activity during the summer season. Fireflies also may be affected by human-made light and pesticides in lawns, so researchers hope to also learn more about those effects.

1. Laser Harp: Build It Yourself

Tech musician Stephen Hobley’s laser harp was the most popular project in our Project Finder. After building your laser harp, you’ll coax out the computer-generated sounds by waving your hands to break the light beams and change their lengths. We first found out about Stephone’s harp in recent issue of Make magazine that was devoted to build-them-yourself, high-tech musical instruments. Sounds awesome, huh?

Creative citizen scientists can compose and share their own science songs! Photo: sxc.hu

Songs have helped me remember a lot of academic information – from learning all 50 states* in alphabetic order when I was in elementary school to figuring out which French verbs take “être” (to be) in the past tense by humming  “Heigh Ho” from the musical Snow White.

My science classes got in on the vocal act as well. In math class, we learned the quadratic equation to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” In graduate school, my friends created a statistics rap to help their students get interested in difficult material. In my own Biopsychology classes, students enjoyed learning parts of the brain from Pinky and the Brain. (Well, at least they got a laugh!)

Does anyone actually keep track of this scientific creativity? For one, physicist Walter Smith of Haverford College is collecting all of the physics songs he can find. Do you have a physics song? Send an email to have yours added as well.

Whether they’re learning the citric acid cycle to the tune of “Fly Me to the Moon” (start with “oxaloacetate” and the lyrics fit the tune quite well) or the names of every single element thanks to Tom Lehrer, students of all ages remember scientific information more easily through song. Tunes are also a creative way to share your new-found knowledge. If the muse strikes you, come up with your own song to remember something scientific and add it to our member blogs page. Or, if you’re more daring, add a music video to the site!

*For those who want extra credit for singing the states and their capitals, try out this Animaniacs video.

Innocentive built the first global Web community for open innovation where organizations or “Seekers” submit complex problems or “Challenges” for resolution to a “Solver” community of more than 200,000 engineers, scientists, inventors, business professionals, and research organizations in more than 200 countries.   Innocentive’s CEO Dwayne Spradlin called ScienceForCitizens.net (and our sister site, ScienceCheerleader.com) “close cousins” of Innocentive in our shared faith in collaborative research. We knew our audiences were similar in many ways: you’re engaged, you want to improve the world–or your own corner of the world–you’re creative, and you’re not afraid to try something new. So, Innocentive posted one of its challenges on ScienceForCitizens.net to measure responses. It turns out the conversion rate (number of people who linked from Sci4Cits to Innocentive’s challenge and proceeded to submit ideas to solve the challenge) was VERY high. I hope one of you will win the prize money offered for that particular challenge!

Yesterday, Innocentive posted another challenge on Sci4Cits: $5K to the solver who comes up with a new idea for an “open and re-closable fastening system which will be effective and easy to use on a clothing product. The Seeker is looking for something other than the obvious common fasteners such as buttons, zippers, Velcro, sticky tabs and hook and loop closures.” Good luck!

Recently, Sci4Cits cofounder, Michael Gold, was interviewed for Innocentive’s website, reaching more than 200,000 solvers. Check out the interview! Michael explains how and why we launched this site and where we’d like to take it from here.

Thanks for joining us on this journey!

An arduino

Part art, part science, NYC Resistor is a “hacker collective” that shares information about and builds electronic…stuff. Amazing stuff: an interactive embroidery machine, books that “breathe,” cyber woodpeckers, a painting robot.

Not surprisingly, the founders include folks like Bre Pettis, who produces a weekly video podcast called “Weekend Projects” for Make: Magazine; Nick Bilton, the lead technology writer for The New York Times Bits Blog; and Diana Eng, who mixes fashion design and technology to create clothes that have blooming flowers and change color.

At the heart of this group is a device called the arduino—a programmable microcontroller that’s a far cry from the capacitors and resistors my brother and I spent weekends soldering together to make various gizmos. Cheap and easy to program, the arduino has fostered a huge community of DIY-ers and arty geeks. Like NYC Resistor.

In their shared space in downtown Brooklyn, the collective runs a Microcontroller Study Group and offers classes such as Introduction to Electronics, Audio Fun with Coils,  Make Your Own Arduino and Learn to Program It, and Paper Engineering. They often put on events such as “Superstars of the Arduino,” a March 27 show that featured the cool projects described above. Membership is by invitation only, but classes are open to the public, as is Craft Night, which the collective hosts most Thursdays. Check ‘em out next time you’re in New York.

Things – Edith Kollath Creates Books that Breathe from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.