Citizen Science: How Ordinary People are Changing the Face of Discovery

It has been said many times that small groups of dedicated people are the only ones who make a difference. But in the Internet age, we’re finding ways to mobilize greater and greater numbers of people to accomplish amazing things. We’ve seen crowdfunding, online protests, and other organized movements, but there’s another revolution stirring that involves the people: citizen science.

Plowing through available information and adding the human touch to data analysis formerly left to computers, opening up their computers to increase processing power, and other acts of scientific cooperation are just a few examples offered in Citizen Science, a chronicle of the growing trend of group observation and analysis assisting traditional scientists in their work. Heck, there are citizen science projects that have mapped the tides and even outperformed the Hubble Space Telescope.

Citizen Science provides an intriguing history of the process, exploring weather data collected by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Louis and Clark. This is science writ large in all the best ways, allowing PhDs and interested laymen the chance to accomplish scientific feats like never before. And this book is both the tribute and guidebook to get you started.