Great primer for the January launch of SciCheer’s sister site, ScienceforCitizens.net. Today, SEED published this article on the growth of citizen scientists then the author tweeted a link to scicheer. Here are two big points pulled from the article:

Researchers in fields ranging from biochemistry to cosmology are recruiting armies of volunteers to help solve some of science’s thorniest problems.
Citizen science isn’t just a public relations exercise: it makes a significant contribution to the corpus of scientific knowledge. Improved public awareness of science is an important additional benefit, but it’s not the primary goal of citizen science. Rather, this emerging technique allows scientists to make use of what is still the most powerful computational resource on the planet: the human brain.

Want to get involved? Start here. In January, we’ll have LOTS of opportunities to get your hands dirty with science. Stay tuned!