Category: Blogs

By Rob Pederick, ACSA member and grey nomad Now the tent poles are rotting, the campfires are dead, And the possums may gambol in trees overhead; I am humping my bluey far out on the land, And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand: I am out on the wallaby humping my drum, And I came by the tracks where the sundowners come. From ‘On the Wallaby’ by Henry Lawson. G’day there, my name is Rob Pederick, but these days most people call me ‘Dusty’. I am a member of ACSA and an amateur entomologist. Most of my working life was spent on farms working with animals and I even had a go at zoo-keeping for a while. When I was a young bloke, many, many years ago,…

So what is citizen science? When was the first time you heard this term, #citizenscience? An excellent blog from ACSA member and CitSci.Asia's co-founder, Mendel Wong. “Happy Citizen Science Day!”

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (#SDGs) until recently have not been something most of us have been aware of in relation to citizen science – but there’s increasing focus on these goals as they set the aspirations of sustainability; environmentally, economically and socially. The 17 global goals are designed to set a sustainable development agenda to transform our world by 2030. Local, state, and federal government personnel are now incorporating the SDGs into domestic policy, planning and reporting, so there is a real need for co-ordination, but also to define a role for citizen science to be embedded and integrated into this process. Several groups are exploring how members of the general public and non-traditional data can contribute to achieving these incredibly ambitious aims, with a number of targets…

By Libby Hepburn Martin Brocklehurst’s instructions to me were to fill his visit with as many important and influential people as possible, who might help develop citizen science in Australia – so I did. The result has been an amazing journey with global and local insights into a multitude of citizen science initiatives and a hugely positive and energised response from people across the country. It’s a great time for citizen science! Martin Brocklehurst is one of the Founders of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), Chair of the ECSA Policy working group, instigator of the Global Mosquito Alert Consortium (GMAC) and has played a key part in the formation of the Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP). His illustrious career has included high level government appointments in the Environment Agency…

Matthew Hall won the "Spotteron Competition" at #CitSciOz18, and his Brushturkey app is now live Matthew Hall, PhD Candidate, Integrative Ecology Lab, The University of Sydney I’d like to start this post by saying how incredibly grateful I am to the Australian Citizen Science Association for this opportunity to engage with the citizen science community, as well as to Spotteron for the fantastic work they did in building this app. Working with Spotteron to design and roll out the BrushTurkey app has been a unique and rewarding experience for me. Throughout the process I have been impressed by Spotteron’s expertise and the potential for citizen science to contribute to the broader scientific understanding of my study species and Australian wildlife in general. [caption id="attachment_7651" align="alignleft" width="248"] Matthew and a tagged…

Scholarship winner Alan Stenhouse found the diverse range of local and international presentations at #CitSciOz18 interesting, enriching and inspiring.  Alan Stenhouse, PhD candidate, Centre for Applied Conservation Science, University of Adelaide From February 7-9 2018, I attended the Australian Citizen Science Conference that was held in my current home town of Adelaide, Australia. Thanks to the Australian Citizen Science Association’s (ACSA) generosity I managed to win a scholarship that covered my registration fee – much appreciated! We started the conference with some workshops – I attended “New Visions in Citizen Science and Public Policy in Australia”. Some of the highlights of this for me were Libby Hepburn telling us of the United Nation’s goal to get one billion Citizen Scientists in the world by 2020! Then Jo White, from the…

Masters student Hayley Bridgwood found knowledge, inspiration and useful case studies at CitSciOz18 Hayley Bridgwood from University College Dublin, Ireland Well what a fabulous few days at the CitSciOz 2018 Conference! As an MSc (Environmental Sustainability) candidate through University College Dublin I have been pursuing various areas of academic interest including ecology and genetics as they relate to conservation – all with the view to ultimately work with landholders and support them in sustainable agricultural practices. The conference has given me a much greater appreciation of the value of aggregated data and the roles that landholders might play in being part of the first line of research. I came to the Conference with a very novice understanding of citizen science and online crowdsourcing.  And I left with a very full…