See? We weren’t making it up when, a few years ago, we said citizen science was more than a passing trend. If you’d like to see a lists of hundreds of very cool citizen science projects (actual research projects you can do), check out SciCheer’s sister site: ScienceForCitizens.net
Here are two recent media clips that highlight accomplishments of a few citizen scientists while peeking at the thin but bright line separating professional researchers from amateur scientists:
The New York Times
Managing Scientific Inquiry in a Laboratory the Size of the Web
By Alex Wright
Published: December 27, 2010
…as millions of people get involved in these participatory projects, scientists are grappling with how best to harness the amateurs’ enthusiasm.
And from National Public Radio
Doing Real-World Science, But Skipping The Ph.D.
Aired: January 7, 2011
As big science projects generate more and more data, researchers are recruiting citizen scientists to help sift through the information overload. And in the case of new astronomical discoveries, amateur collaborators are even scoring authorship credits on peer-reviewed papers.