Description
Presenters: Andrew Simon
At this meeting we will be discussing community engagement and citizen science in the context of biodiversity research and local climate monitoring on Galiano Island, BC, Canada.
Notes
- iNaturalist is an international platform that gives you the ability to create projects on it
- Biodiversity Galiano Island is a project added to it
- Andrew published mostly articles. He had to do a lot of on the ground community engagement.
- it has since engaged a lot of people, including those who are from off the island.
- Biodiversity Galiano Island is a project added to it
- Polinator Survey
- fund raised for by kayaking around the island
- did his own independent surveys
- Roughly 75% of community outreach has come through social media (e.g. Facebook).
- However created an independent website (biogaliano.org) because his posts were getting "swallowed by the Facebook monster".
- Some of the features includes endangered species, discoveries (e.g. documentation of species that are found on the island, some of these are now cited in journals)
- However created an independent website (biogaliano.org) because his posts were getting "swallowed by the Facebook monster".
Q/A
- How could there be help in structuring community engagement through technology or technological activities (e.g. QR codes on trees to identify their species)
- One solution would be to create a sign for those who get off the ferry, many already have cameras with them.
- Microclimate monitoring framework (arduino chip sets with sensors, where the nodes are all networked together).
- What relationship do you have with the devs of iNaturalist
- The program came out of a masters research project. It's an innovation of the California acadamey of sciences.
- Do you communicate with them about improvements to their platform.
- It is open source, and they communicate over a google group
- Diagram of spider species
- It was available through D3, but modified with the help of a JavaScript developer
- How do you update the links to in the spider diagram?
- Manually inputed using Javascript
- Is there something you'd like to do that's just out of reach (e.g. technologically, engagement, etc. )
- There is a particular D3 visualization (sunburst), and others that would be helpful to represent the data.
- What is the hardest thing for people to engage with citizen science and how they can be connected to scientific research?
- People do engage with confirming species. Similar drive to what people have when using Pokemon Go.
- The momentum of the project is around documenting species, but not everyone is interested in this.
- Another idea was to use algae to make art work
- not everything has to become data in the end, should find frameworks to pair up personal goals.
- Are there other art projects
- There was a piñata project
- How did you first get going?
- Support by pillars with the community who wanted to support his undergraduate research
- Was writing regularly in the actives page, encouraged people to explore and learn
- Community inventories of natural areas
- mini-bioblitzes; fewer people no experts. Culminated last May into a full BioBlitz
- Galiano is a population of approximately 900 people
- How do initially engage people, how do you instruct them on the process.
- The framework before was with lists. People are already come to the island with cameras but they aren't guided. Signs would help with that.
- Through community events.
- Does the community model in iNaturalist work for review?
- There are algorithms to help validate discoveries.
- There is a movement to use visual algorithms to help pair down the classification, for example by genus.
- Any tools to help with your own research and with others performing similar research?
- There are a couple other communities in my region (biodiversity squamish, nanaimo?), work to standardized data so that they can more easily compare records.
- Talking about getting the data set published in the scientific community