Calls to Action ///
Along with much of the global citizen science community, Ireland says he is excited by the promise of what’s in store this April — when a wave of bioblitz-type events will be held as part of an even larger citizen science campaign coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
At the centre of these events is Earth Challenge 2020, “a global call to action” for the collection and integration of data for six research questions related to environmental and human health (these involve climate change, air and water quality, insect decline, plastic pollution and food security). Organized jointly by the Earth Day Network, the U.s.-based Wilson Center and the U.S. Department of State’s Eco-capitals Forum, the event has two goals — to expand the amount of open citizen science data (new and existing) that’s available to address these six issues while providing tools and educational resources that people can use to take action in their local communities and countries.
The kickoff will feature the launch of an Earth Challenge 2020 mobile app to gather data collected at events around the world. The goal is to involve hundreds of millions of people and many more data points. Anne Bowser, director of innovation at the Wilson Center’s science and technology innovation program — whose primary role in the partnership is to ensure research integrity and data integration — says the app will enable the Earth Day Network to arm those people with “a tool for understanding the environment and then driving change.”
Bowser says working on the project’s development “has been a trip.” She recognizes that some will question the need for another new mobile app for data gathering, and says it reflects the broader challenge that comes with citizen science’s growth and maturity. “A lot of environmental problems require big data, [but they also] require interoperable data and data that’s consistent across different areas.”
Despite the event’s massive ambition, Bowser views it as a pilot project. The Earth Day launch is a starting point, not the climax. Once the excitement of the spring dies down, she says, “we’re going to take a big step back, figure out what was successful, what’s duplicative, and then figure out our long-term plan for the governance and ownership of the different resources that we’re building.”
Along with Earth Challenge, April has been designated Global Citizen Science Month by the Citizen Science Association. Another highlight will be a four-day international bioblitz program called the City Nature Challenge. Hosted on inaturalist, the challenge began in 2016 as a bioblitz competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles but has since spread rapidly. In 2019, 159 cities took part, with a much larger number expected in 2020.
“The City Nature Challenge has brought a lot of us together,” says Ireland. “Last year Halifax did it, one of three Canadian cities. This year we’ve got about eight locations in the Maritimes registered, and there’s another 10 or more around Canada.” (See Get Involved sidebar to learn more.)
In his eyes, seeing such momentum for citizen science at the beginning of 2020 marks a turning point. “I think the decade we’re entering will be a time when participatory research is fundamentally important to policy changes and natural resource management decisions. The more people are involved, the more people understand what the questions are and are actually doing work to collect the data, the more likely they’re going to be to advocate for good, sound environmental policy. Citizen science has made that opportunity available. So, I’m pretty pumped about the future.”1