Collaboration & partnerships – Page 7 – Australian Citizen Science Association

12Aug 2019 by Amy Slocombe No Comments

How Cooloola Coastcare hatched Cooloola TurtleCare with a seed grant from the Australian Citizen Science Association

Blogs, Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion

By Lindy Orwin, Cooloola Coastcare Worldwide, marine turtles are at risk. But on the Cooloola Coast in the Gympie region of Queensland, where several endangered, vulnerable and threatened species (including the green, loggerhead, hawksbill and flatback turtles) live, there are some extra challenges. This is an area of dynamic sand movement and many 4WD tourist vehicles use the beach daily, especially during school holidays, because the beach is a gazetted ‘road’. Young hatchlings whose nests survive the king tides and storm surge of the crazy Queensland storms, have to run the gauntlet to survive. The Cooloola Coast turtle breeding beaches urgently need monitoring and the community needs education about marine turtle behaviour if the turtles trying to nest in this area are to be successful. These beaches and those to…

05Aug 2019 by Amy Slocombe 2 Comments

Seed Grants 2019 – Call for applications!

Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion

What’s in it for you? $1000 to seed your professional development or your project’s growth. Exposure for your project and/or organisation. Motivation to initiate something you have always wanted to do. Quick and easy application process (online application form). ACSA is excited to announce our second round of Seed Grants. As a way of giving back and investing in our members we are offering grants of $1000 each to two ACSA members to seed their professional growth or their project’s growth. Last year, three ACSA members won ACSA Seed Grants: Jodi Salmond of Reef Check Australia – Life coaching to work more effectively with volunteers Geetha Ortac of Bellingen Riverwatch – Printing of training manuals Dr Lindy Orwin of Cooloola Turtlecare – Training of a certified carer Could you be…

05Aug 2019 by Amy Slocombe 2 Comments

Engaging and Retaining those elusive volunteers…

Blogs, Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion, Education, Engaging citizens

By Jodi Salmond, Reef Check Australia Volunteer engagement and retention have long been an issue for the not for profit sector. Organisations reliant on unpaid workers have substantial investments in time, training, and financial input, as well as an ongoing mentoring/upskilling programs to ensure volunteers feel both valued and supported, in addition to having the right skills to conduct the tasks required of them. Despite this, some volunteers still cancel last minute, or cease to show up at all- leaving organisers stretched, frustrated, and unable to meet funding milestones. We all invest a lot in all our volunteers. I believe that overall, we are great at supporting them; we train them, we guide them, we answer their questions, we thank them for, validate their efforts and make sure everyone feels…

05Aug 2019 by Amy Slocombe No Comments

Quality training manuals thanks to ACSA grant

Blogs, Collaboration & partnerships

By Geeta Ortac, Bellingen Riverwatch I still remember the excitement when I saw the email from ACSA announcing an opportunity for a small grant. The timing couldn’t be better! Bellingen Riverwatch was gaining momentum and we really needed support to print out some good quality copies of our volunteer training manual. Bellingen Riverwatch is a water quality monitoring citizen science project supporting recovery actions for the critically endangered Bellingen River Snapping turtle (Myuchelys georgesi). These manuals were incredibly important as they served as an ongoing reference and training guide for our volunteers. The manuals aided data collection and ensured volunteer safety at sites. As the manuals were intended for frequent use (mostly in outdoor settings), it was recommended that they should be printed and bounded with good quality materials to…

05Aug 2019 by Amy Slocombe No Comments

Invitation to interview re “expertise” in citizen science projects

Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion, Social research in CS

Researchers at the University of Waterloo, Canada, are looking for citizen scientists, and researchers running citizen science projects, to participate in a study concerning how “expertise” is defined and identified in citizen science projects. This research is part of a bigger project called “Networked Expertise in Multidisciplinary STEM Collaboration,” that is being conducted by Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher at the University of Waterloo. The goal of this research is to better understand the implicit and explicit assessment of expertise that researchers use in multidisciplinary STEM collaborations. Understanding these mechanisms has significance to training initiatives at local and national levels. Would you like to participate? All you need to do is join in a 30-minute interview (via Skype / FaceTime etc.) with Dr. Mehlenbacher or a member of her research team. Individuals…

06May 2019 by Amy Slocombe No Comments

Earth Challenge 2020: Research Questions to Help Citizen Science Scale

Collaboration & partnerships, Engaging citizens

A message from the Wilson Centre, USA: Your knowledge + Small digital acts of science = Answers to the world’s most pressing challenges April 22nd, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. In recognition of this milestone a consortium of partners is launching Earth Challenge 2020 (EC2020) as the world’s largest coordinated citizen science campaign to date. By working with existing citizen science projects and building capacity for new activities, EC2020 will foster the collecting and integration of one billion open, interoperable data points to strengthen links between science, the environment, and society. In addition to integrating existing citizen science data, Earth Challenge 2020 will also create a new mobile application and app framework, available in six UN languages, to help communities around the world participate in citizen science.…

05Apr 2019 by Michelle Neil No Comments

@CitSciTC – A Citizen Science Conference For Everyone

Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion, Conferences

Towards the end of 2019 we will see something that has never happened in citizen science before – our first ever worldwide twitter conference! Do you have a smartphone? An internet connected laptop? A computer with wifi? Does your local library have public computers connected to the internet or provides access to wifi? If so then you can participate. But here’s the great thing - there is no venue to pay for and no accommodation needed so this is the cheapest conference you will ever attend! What is a Twitter Conference? A Twitter conference is a virtual conference that takes place on Twitter under the hashtag #CitSciTC. Just like a regular conference, #CitSciTC will feature research presentations and even keynotes, but the talks will be delivered via a series of tweets…

29Mar 2019 by Michelle Neil No Comments

#CitSci2019, Raleigh, NC USA!

Blogs, Collaboration & partnerships, Conferences, Meetings and Events

By Michelle Neil (ACSA Secretary and social media moderator) “We come together at this conference to learn and work together for positive, productive outcomes.” Every year ACSA sends a member of the Management Committee to a sister citizen science association conference somewhere in the world. This year I was the lucky one, so earlier this month I set off to attend the Citizen Science Association’s #CitSci2019 Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina USA. [caption id="attachment_14580" align="alignleft" width="145"] Flying into Raleigh NC. Population 464,000. Pic: Michelle Neil[/caption] After more than 30 hours of travel I flew into Raleigh at 4am on Tuesday the 12th of March, grabbed an UBER and headed to the hotel. The first day of the conference dawned cold and fine. I headed across the road to the Raleigh…

11Feb 2019 by Libby Hepburn No Comments

Citizen Science on the world stage at UNEA4 in Nairobi

Collaboration & partnerships, Meetings and Events

By Libby Hebpurn The Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP) will have a delegation of 15 contributing to the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum (SPBF) on the Environment and the United Nations Environment Assembly 4 to be held in Nairobi from March 8 – 13th. We will have representatives of the major citizen science associations in Africa, Asia, USA, Europe and Australia and this year, citizen science is firmly on the agenda in both sessions. This is significant for the development of the movement as these are the major policy forums for world-leading actions on the environment and this year the theme of the SPBF is; Innovative solutions for environmental challenges and sustainable consumption and production. Recommendations from the Forum inform the UN Environment Assembly and the UN’s work on the Sustainable Development…

29Aug 2018 by Amy Slocombe No Comments

Free Seminar with Martin Brocklehurst – 11 Sept

Collaboration & partnerships, Communication & promotion, Uncategorized

The Australian Citizen Science Association, CSIRO and GeoScience Australia present the following FREE public seminar by Martin Brocklehurst: Global Citizen Science - Can Citizens Deliver and Make a Difference? Tuesday 11 September, 2018 9:30am - 10:30am CSIRO Discovery Theatre Black Mountain, ACT REGISTER NOW! More Information We are witnessing an explosion of Citizen Science activity as technology makes it possible for citizens to take part in science and deliver unprecedented levels of quality data across the globe. Martin Brocklehurst has been at the fore front of activity to bring the global citizen science community together to develop global programmes that have the potential to provide data and information that can be used to: Empower citizens to manage emerging risks to their health and wellbeing; To provide information to Governments that…

Category: Collaboration & partnerships