In Mondim de Basto, Portugal, travelers on a small group tour with Exodus Adventure Travels lean over a clear-as-glass river from a grassy bank, collecting water and squeezing it through a filter. When they’re done, that filter will be shipped off to a lab for analysis. The lab will catalog the DNA collected that indicates which species are found in local waterways–all in the name of filling gaps in global biodiversity data.
On an expedition off the coast of Greenland, cruisers on the small HX (formerly Hurtigruten Expeditions) ship peer over the edge of a zodiac, watching for the moment as a white disk disappears beneath the waves so they can take a depth measurement and submit it using an app to scientists who can then study phytoplankton.
[ Related: How to become a citizen scientist—and when to leave it to the professionals ]
None of the individuals collecting this data are professional scientists; just ordinary travelers with a fierce curiosity and desire to leave the far-flung places they visit better than they found them by participating in citizen science. Data collection isn’t just for researchers–travelers are often perfectly suited to help bolster the dearth of data to be documented across scientific disciplines around the world.
While the term citizen science may sound amateur (how much reliable information can individuals without doctorates in chemistry or biology even contribute?), the areas of scientific study that utilize information gathered by everyday individuals span the gamut, from environmental science to marine biology.
And the data non-scientists are able to provide often proves invaluable.
In fact, one study showed that citizen-collected scientific data contributes, or could potentially contribute, to 40 percent of United Nations Sustainable Development goals. It offers grassroots organizations and small operations a way to access centralized knowledge, which is paramount in modern scientific…
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