Terrie Miller is an amateur naturalist, citizen scientist, permaculturist and writer who lives in Northern Calfornia.  She’s the publisher of the Citizen Science Projects Weblog. (You can find more of her writing at Grinning Jaguar.)

She’s also our first guest blogger! We asked Terrie to tell us more about permaculture, a fascinating citizen scientist opportunity:

“Permaculture is a design practice and way of life that seeks to establish human settlements that work as natural systems. It combines growing and harvesting food, soil management, natural building, watershed management, forestry, animal systems, intentional community building and other skills, all towards living in a way that’s sustainable.”

You can read Terrie’s full Permaculture article here.

 

 

Terrie’s a big fan of this, and other, citizen science projects as cures to ”nature-deficit disorder” (our disconnect from nature):

“Like many of my hawk watching friends, I joined Hawk Watch not for the science, but for the love of hawks. We questioned our own data, and discussed how it was influenced by factors like weather, resident vs. migrating hawks, and different observers. I began to see how citizen science was connecting us to the practice of science, but also helping to connect us back to nature. My experience as a citizen scientist was having a positive impact on my mental and emotional health.”

So how do we get from hawks and citizen science to food and the sustainability of our future? Find out in Terrie’s thoughtful and enlightening article, here.  (Let us know if you decide to give permaculture a shot! And, if anyone in Philadelphia is interested in pursuing this with me, let’s talk.)

 

Our time has come!

As a kid, perhaps you wanted to grow up and be a scientist…and baseball player, famous chef, president, or first [fill-in-the-blank] astronaut.

Then came middle school and the emergence of hormones/testosterone and stereotypical overtures reminding you that science is for geeky boys or socially dysfunctional girls. High school just ramped all of this up but at least in middle school you did some cool classroom science experiments.

Some science-loving adolescents (like the Science Cheerleader) weren’t swayed by any of this, but couldn’t afford college, started a family or chose other careers.

Well, have I got news for you folks! People like us, untrained in the sciences, are clamoring to be engaged in science at rates unmatched since the days of Ben Franklin. A growing number of so-called “citizen scientists” are not waiting for invitations to participate in science policy discussions or hoping the next generation will improve its dismal science literacy rates. Instead, they are jumping in to change the way science gets done. And having a lot of fun in the process!

Citizen scientists monitor water quality, tag butterflies , count birds, record earthquake tremors and observe and record celestial patterns. Here are three good resource sites where you can learn about other cool citizen science opportunities: Terrie Miller’s Citizen Science blog, Cornell University’s Citizen Science ToolKit and the Society for Amateur Scientists.

In July, news of Sky Survey,an international collaboration mapping a large section of the universe, spread over the web. Within a few months, more than 100,000 volunteer citizen scientists classified more than 1 million galaxies.

John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, notes that as “more and more amateurs and the researchers they work with realize the potential, and people see that their contributions matter, the era of the citizen scientist will explode.”

Are more scientists learning to trust the public’s capacity to learn, draw conclusions, and contribute to science discussions? It appears so.

I hope they invite the public to do more science.

An important step towards building teamwork between the public, scientists and the government.

Are you a Citizen Scientist? Tell us about your experience!

Where do you think the Citizen Science movement is heading? What does the future hold?

Cheers!

-The Science Cheerleader