Citizen Science is a term that appears in no dictionary. However, a search for the words citizen science on the Internet yields hundreds of web pages, even full web sites, dedicated to the concept of public involvement in organized research. From breeding bird atlases to aquatic insect counts, from frog watching projects to reef fish surveys, thousands of individuals across North America are engaging in the scientific process. This talk traces the history of citizen science from Aristotle to the present day, outlining benefits of the practice to scientists, the environment, and citizen participants. It also discusses various types of citizen science projects, ranging from projects in which citizens serve primarily as data collectors to those in which participants ask and answer their own questions.

Results/Conclusions

The talk concludes by describing a new coalition, Citizen Science Central, designed to bring together best practices for developing, implementing, and evaluating citizen science projects to ensure that they serve all participants to the fullest extent possible and result in high quality scientific research.