Community Science

The Community Science Working Group had its beginnings as an Adhoc group on citizen science at the GLEON 17 meeting in Korea (2015) and evolved into a full working group at the GLEON 18 meeting in Austria (2016), a joint meeting with NETLAKE, GLEON’s sister network in Europe. Members from both networks teamed up to initiate lake-based citizen science on a global scale.

Among the first activities of the Working Group will be to open-up ongoing NETLAKE citizen science projects to the global lake community. Since 2010, GLEON members have been working on the Lake Observer mobile app project (see link below). Through cooperation with NETLAKE and other GLEON members, use of the app for collecting lake and water quality data will be expanded to Europe and other regions of the world. GLEON artists and musicians are exploring and interpreting data through a variety of media, developing innovative ways to experience the data. Projects enhance collaboration, creativity and communication between the arts and sciences.

Citizen Science is scientific research performed, partly or fully, by people not professionally trained as scientists in that particular field. It is also known as public participation in scientific research.

Many citizen science projects serve multiple goals, including education and outreach, data gathering, and addressing scientific literacy. For scientists, citizen science allows for scaling up of their project and informing a wide audience about their work. For citizens, it allows participation in real scientific research, and allows them to learn more about the environment and get hands-on experience together with the scientific process.

The Working Group updated its name to Community Science at the GLEON 21.5 virtual meeting.