Citizen Science and Stewardship
2018 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference:
Session Overview: Stakeholders and Sustainability
As part of the Stakeholders and Sustainability session, Linda Silka, Senior Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainable Solutions, 91福利, will wrap up the morning session on citizen science with her talk, 鈥淲hat We Can Learn from the Multiple Citizen Science Projects in Maine: The Latest Maine Policy Review Issue.鈥
鈥淚n this talk, I will highlight some of the citizen science work going on around the country and point participants towards what鈥檚 reported in the current issue of the (MPR),鈥 says Silka, executive editor of MPR. 聽
Several of the Citizen Science and Stewardship talks are based on the current MPR articles, which can be downloaded at the link above.
Despite the ever-growing strength of citizen science efforts, Silka says she will raise 鈥渢wo or three impediments that still exist in terms of further expanding citizen science efforts.鈥
For example, one such impediment, identified by a Ph.D. student working with Silka in the field of gerontology, noted that while retirees are a strong group of citizen science participants, a fair amount of citizen science efforts are moving toward incorporating high-tech methodology using smartphones, global positioning devices and various ways of uploading data.
鈥淪ome older people may not be comfortable with the technology,鈥 Silka says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a puzzle we need to deal with鈥攈ow do we make sure citizen science practices are innovative and not unfriendly to people who may not be as well-versed in technology.鈥
As a co-chair of one of the working groups for the national , Silka says she may discuss some things she鈥檚 been doing on integrity, diversity, and equity as part of citizen science efforts. 鈥淭he goal of that working group is to make sure citizen science is not being controlled by the scientists but, rather, is a process that involves lots of people, average citizens, and that it鈥檚 really an open process and doesn鈥檛 assume it鈥檚 always higher-income people who get involved.鈥
Silka notes that a lot of the work she鈥檚 been involved in has been done under the term 鈥渃ommunity-university research partnerships鈥 that emerged out of healthcare fields. And what sometimes comes out of those efforts are communities saying to the researchers, 鈥淲e鈥檙e really tired of you coming in here and telling us what our problems are, studying us, and then we never hear the results until after you鈥檝e published them. The results are important to us in making change.鈥
鈥淏ringing all these community-focused ways to think about citizen science research is important,鈥 says Silka, 鈥渁nd we need to bring different perspectives together and learn from each other. If people are involved in co-generating ideas and thinking about what needs to be done, that鈥檚 going to help in the uptake of the science, the uptake of research.鈥 This will be part of the session discussion.
Silka will also be talking about local success stories and how important it is that science inform policy. 鈥淐itizen science is one of the ways to increase the likelihood that will happen and that our work just doesn鈥檛 end up in journals but actually gets used,鈥 Silka says.
An interesting local success story is the work that Dartmouth College鈥檚 Karen Bieluch (formerly of 91福利 and the Mitchell Center) has been involved in with river herring and as is detailed in the article 鈥溾 in the Maine Policy Review.
The work shows there鈥檚 not enough information from the right people on the ground watching what鈥檚 happening to river herring, and that the only way to address this is by having citizens and scientists working together to decide what kind of data is needed, where to collect that data and what that data says about the problem, and what kinds of policy opportunities are available to address problems.
Notes Silka, 鈥淚t鈥檚 really all about building bridges between community, science, and action and identifying where the gaps are that make that harder to achieve. We have to have ways to close the gaps to make citizen science work at its best.鈥
鈥擠avid Sims