Tools for Citizen-Science Recruitment and Student Engagement in Your Research and in Your Classroom.

The field of citizen science is exploding and offers not only a great way to engage the general public in science literacy through primary research, but also an avenue for teaching professionals to engage their students in meaningful community research experiences. Though this field is expanding, there are many hurdles for researchers and participants, as well as challenges for teaching professionals who want to engage their students. Here we highlight one of our projects that engaged many citizens in Raleigh, NC, and across the world, and we use this as a case study to highlight ways to engage citizens in all kinds of research. Through the use of numerous tools to engage the public, we gathered citizen scientists to study skin microbes and their associated odors, and we offer valuable ideas for teachers to tap into resources for their own students and potential citizen-science projects.

INTRODUCTION

Inquiry into scientific questions has originated mostly from professional research endeavors. With the proliferation of technology and the use of smartphones in daily life, science can now be made more easily accessible to the general public. Partnered with research moving from a closed laboratory with no public engagement to an active public discussion via social media, this has opened the flood gates to citizens interacting with scientists and engaging in authentic research. Museums are now playing a bigger role in engaging the public in authentic research and are a great resource for researchers and teachers. Citizen scientists can be anyone, from a child in the classroom to a retired adult who wants to contribute to a research project by collecting data, providing samples, or even shaping research questions.

Our current research focuses on the daily experience of sweating and odor produced by the microscopic organisms (microbes including bacteria and Archaea) living on our skin. In order to explore this fascinating ecosystem on our skin, we enlisted citizen scientists to provide samples of microbes from their skin and to assess microbial odors in an event called “Speed Smelling.” The smelling event was set up so that participants could smell T-shirts worn by volunteers (who had gone two days without underarm product) and rate the overall smell, odor intensity and attractiveness (Fig. 1). For this study, we used several tools, including a combination of community partnerships and social media, to recruit participants, and we interacted with classrooms to engage students in discussing the background and the significance of the project as well as brainstorming future studies.

FIGURE 1

The Speed Smelling Event was held at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in the SECU Daily Planet Theater. After a brief introduction, each participant smelled a T-shirt that had been previously worn by a participant. Each bag held a T-shirt that was labeled with a coded participant letter, and participants were asked to rate the pleasantness, odor intensity, and attractiveness. We also had participants describe the smell of each T-shirt. (All participants signed a media release form.)

Citizen-science recruitment procedure

Recruiting participants to research projects is challenging but critical to research study design and project success. Below, we highlight several tools to use for developing and advertising a citizen-science project (for a more complete list, see Fig. 2):

FIGURE 2

Several tools for gathering citizen scientists, expanding your network, and launching a project.

Community partnerships

Reach out to your local science museum, community center, or library to present your research and recruit participants for your project. Often these venues are looking for interesting science content and welcome researchers as presenters. We work in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences where we presented short public talks about our research to museum visitors months before the start of our project to generate interest and excitement about our project. Abundant connections with science-minded community individuals, museum visitors, and museum-related organizations could also bring support through enrollment of participants and can increase the public’s awareness of science and the process of science happening in their own community.

Social media

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have become ubiquitous and are used daily by many people. Use these resources and your followers to help you spread the word about your idea or project. When tweeting, include Twitter handles for experienced citizen-science groups (Table 1) to encourage them to tweet about your project to their followers and to attract participants already enrolled in other citizen-science projects. Once your project has launched, use your Twitter handle or Facebook page to allow followers to directly fill out an online form to participate in the study by embedding a link in a post (e.g., to a Google document). Also, establish a hashtag (e.g., #skinscent) so that your citizen scientists can be a part of the active conversation and follow the progress of the study in real time.

TABLE 1

A short list of citizen-science groups across the globe.

Audubon Society (www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count, @audubonsociety)

Australian Citizen Science Association (www.citizenscience.org.au/wordpress/, @CitSciOZ)

California Academy of Sciences (http://calacademy.org/citizen-science-0, @calacademy)

Citizen Science Association (http://citizenscienceassociation.org/, @CitSciAssoc)

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit, @CornellBirds)

Denver Museum of Nature & Science (www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/nicole-garneau/the-genetics-lab, @DenverMuseumNS)

European Citizen Science Association (http://ecsa.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/)

National Ecological Observatory Network (www.neoninc.org/, @NEONInc)

National Wildlife Federation (www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Conservation/Citizen-Science.aspx, @NWF)

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (http://naturalsciences.org/research-collections/citizen-science, @naturalsciences)

PLOS Blogs CitizenSci (http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/, @CoopSciScoop)

SciStarter (http://scistarter.com/, @SciStarter)

Socientize (http://pybossa.socientize.eu/pybossa/, @SOCIENTIZE)

The Field Museum (www.fieldmuseum.org/science/citizen-science, @FieldMuseum)

Your Wild Life Group (www.YourWildLife.org, @YourWild_Life)

In addition to using social media for recruitment, we used Twitter, a website (Armpits.yourwildlife.org, Fig. 3), and e-mail for ongoing communication with our citizen scientists. Take an active role in updating your progress on the project with e-mails and fun pictures for your social media accounts using the same recruitment hashtag. Keeping your participants engaged in the project leads to further communication and collaboration, which could increase recruitment for your next project and help you brainstorm future directions.

FIGURE 3

By posting on a website, we have ongoing communication with our citizen scientists. Through collaboration with YourWildLife.org, we have been able to update our participants on the progress of the project and provide an avenue for further dialogue about the nature of research.

Engaging students in the classroom or laboratory

Because citizen science is based on the notion that science is accessible, classroom-based citizen-science projects are a great way to get students thinking about issues in the world and designing solutions. This can be aided by connecting with scientists in the area through community colleges, museums, or universities. Below are several ways to encourage citizen science in your classrooms.

Classroom procedure

Make science engaging by linking up with an established citizen project

In the lecture hall or laboratory, your students’ citizen-science projects can spark discussion about how individuals can impact scientific research questions. Creating an atmosphere of scientific inquisitiveness (real-world questions, individual and community science, generating testable hypotheses) in the classroom starts with a topic that is relevant to the real world and one that students will identify with. While they are already invested in collecting the data, allow them time beforehand to design the procedure and, when the collection is finished, to even see their own results! There are numerous projects already underway (Table 1) that you and your students can join to invigorate your classroom and teach about the scientific process.

Interact with a scientist

Another powerful tool is to contact a researcher who is working on a particular citizen-science activity and invite the researcher into the classroom. Engaging the students with a more thorough discussion about background, significance, and overall project goals would add depth to the students’ perspective about the research behind the project. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has a program called Scientists Making Answers Relevant for Teachers and Students (SMARTS), where we have spoken extensively with K–12 and college classrooms about our research into the skin microbiome.

CONCLUSION

Science and the process of scientific inquiry have caught the public’s eye with the mainstream use of smartphones, the constant cycle of news about disease prevention and health, and the development of research applicable to the everyday person. Riding this wave of “scientific popularity” is Citizen Science, a niche within the world of science that gives citizens the opportunity to be active participants in driving research questions and to join teams used to help collect data.

Recruitment is one of the hardest components of a citizen-science project. Our project benefited the most from our public science talks at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, where we discussed our project and upcoming events, as well as from broadcasting the project via Twitter. Volunteers also came to us by word of mouth through university and community colleagues and targeted enrollment using citizen-science groups. Adding a citizen-science component to your research will expand your potential research questions as well as offering a valuable means of gaining experience with science communication! In addition, using citizen science as a tool in your classroom will allow your students to do cutting edge science, learn about scientific processes, and be personally engaged in the advancement of scientific knowledge.