Community Scientist Movements You Can Contribute to

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Add to Scientific Research Projects as a Community Scientist!

There are thousands of brilliant scientists with PhDs and decades of experience who are on the cutting edge of science and technology. But that doesn’t mean we can’t all do our part in pushing the field of science further! Zooniverse is an online collection of scientific projects that everyday science enthusiasts – also known as community scientists – can take part in.

There are numerous different ongoing experiments that require the eyes, ears, and minds of the masses. Want to join the fight against antibiotic resistance? Or perhaps you want to further the research of penguins and their environment? You can even help astronomers find ripples in the very fabric of spacetime! These and even more fantastic projects are taking place right now, and they need YOU to become a citizen scientist to help out!

Check out some of the exciting projects you can help with below, or visit the main Zooniverse website to explore more ways YOU can become a community scientist!

Out-of-this-world astronomy!


 

Galaxy Zoo 

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our observable universe, waaaay too many for astronomers to classify on their own. This is where you come in! Analyze actual photos of distant galaxies that few humans have ever seen, and help us to better understand our universe in the process.

Planet Four

In this project, scientists can study pictures of Mars’ southern polar region to determine seasonal changes. Helpers will mark CO2 vents as fans or splotches to help understand how Mars’ seasonal pattern works.

Field Work


 

Notes from Nature 

This project allows you to explore the hand-written notes of historical botanists. Help modernize and digitize the important work that scientists from hundreds of years ago embarked on.

The University of Wyoming Raccoon Project

Look at pictures of raccoons trying to access food from a puzzle box! Using these pictures, citizen scientists will use special tools to identify what type of animal is onscreen to improve the project’s algorithm. The algorithm will help researchers study the behavioral patterns and traits of our favorite “trash pandas!”

Hummingbirds at Home

Using the Audubon Hummingbirds at Home app, you can create your very own “patch” to study hummingbirds and their activity. The patch can be your backyard, your porch, a local park, or any area you’d like! By studying hummingbirds and the nectar they collect, you can help scientists study the impact of global climate change!

iNaturalist

Have you ever seen a plant or animal and wondered what it was? There's an app for that! The iNaturalist app not only helps you identify new organisms, but hare your findings with scientific data repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to help scientists find and use your data. All you have to do is observe, point, and click! You can download the free app for Apple or Android devices.

Making Change


 

Power to the People 

Close to 1 billion people live without electricity worldwide but fixing this has proven to be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. The only way to solve this problem is to train an AI to identify homes in rural areas but training such a complex algorithm requires the help of hundreds of people... people like you!

Anti-Slavery Manuscripts

Guests will review handwritten correspondence between 19th anti-slavery activists and turn them into text that can be more easily read by teachers, students, historians, and artificial intelligence programs.

We hope you enjoy these citizen scientist projects. Thank you for making a difference and furthering scientific research!

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