Citizen science promotes the participation of the public in scientific research. Often it is primarily about the collection of data by non-experts and amateurs. But, we take it further and engage our audience in the whole scientific process. For us, it's much more than collecting data. Explicitly, it is about sharing skills, bridging communities and domains of expertise; it's about exercising critical thinking and systems thinking together; it's about working at finding solutions together. Doing so, we reclaim the original democratic dimension of science. We put science back into the public space, directly into the hands of the people. And it has a name: co-creative citizen science.
In short, at EwA, citizen science is science by the people, benefiting both People and Nature. Where we live in Massachusetts, our communities get a chance to experience what this means first-hand with our EwA Naturalist program. Our citizen science projects cover different species and habitats, fill science data gaps and promote a form of experiential learning that is system-based. It's not about one species or one habitat in one location. It's rather about the interactions between species, habitats, and their function in several locations (the Middlesex Fells, the Fresh Pond Reservation, the Mass Habitat). It's also about working with the organizations who protect these parks and reservations or have an interest in promoting conservation. We are lucky to count as our partners the Friends of the Fells, Mass Audubon Habitat, the Cambridge Water Department, local libraries and education centers who support these programs.
There is so much we can do together to help both climate science and biodiversity science. Acting together gives us and our children a chance to reconnect with our ecological self, and the will to protect the natural world of which we are a part. Join us and this worldwide effort!
|