What Is Citizen Science?
📋 What it is
Citizen science is ordinary people helping real research by collecting and sharing observations.
🗣️ Coach says
Citizen science means YOU can do real science. Ordinary people — including kids — collect observations (counting birds, logging weather, photographing plants) and share them with researchers, who combine millions of reports into discoveries no single scientist could make alone. Science is for everyone.
🧠 Memory hook
Citizen science = ordinary people gather real observations → scientists combine them into discoveries.
😂 Giggle
Why did the citizen scientist bring a notebook to the park?
To take some field notes — and note the field!
😲 Whoa!
Citizen scientists have discovered new galaxies, tracked disease outbreaks, and found new species — all from their homes, backyards and phones.
✅ Quick check: What is citizen science?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Ordinary people collecting and sharing observations to help real scientific research.
Citizen science crowdsources real data from the public.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Count the birds you see in 5 minutes — that simple observation is exactly what citizen scientists log.