Citizen science: a new approach to advance ecology, education, and conservation

Citizen science has a long history in the eco-logical sciences and has made substantial contributionsto science, education, and society. Developments ininformation technology during the last few decades havecreated new opportunities for citizen science to engageever larger audiences of volunteers to help address someof ecology’s most pressing issues, such as global envi-ronmental change. Using online tools, volunteers canfind projects that match their interests and learn theskills and protocols required to develop questions, col-lect data, submit data,…