Citizen Science and Environmental Action

Green Initiatives presents a special event with Michael Norton, Liz Barry and Professor Muki Haklay on how Citizen Science could be used for engaging the public in environmental research and action.

Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research – be it community-driven research or global investigations. According to an article in The Conversation, "Citizen science projects involve non-professionals taking part in crowdsourcing, data analysis, and data collection. The idea is to break down big tasks into understandable components that anyone can perform."

Citizen science is not outreach or education, as many confused it to be. It IS research and discovery, and is seen as a part of science aimed at demonstrating that people want to make a contribution to science.

Some of the questions we are looking to raise and answer over the course of this event include, but are not limited to:

• So what are the many potentials of citizen science towards environmental action?
• What are some of the examples of such projects already being implemented globally?
• What should someone be wary of, while attempting to participate in, or initiate a citizen science project?

About the Speakers

Liz Barry is the Director of Community Development at Public Lab and co-founder of TreeKIT. Liz develops geographic tools and civic science methods for collaborative cities. Her background is in urban landscape design, and she teaches at Columbia University and Parsons the New School for Design. Previously, she worked at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) planning international new cities and campuses, at Durham Inner-city Gardeners (DIG) coordinating youth urban horticulture enterprise, and has travelled around the country catalyzing interaction among strangers with a “Talk To Me” sign – a project that received international press including the New York Times, AP, CNN, Oprah and NPR’s This American Life. She likes to play outside.

Muki Haklay is a Professor of Geographic Information Science in the Department of Geography, University College London. He is also the co-director of the UCL Extreme Citizen Science group, which is dedicated to allowing any community, regardless of their literacy, to use scientific methods and tools to collect, analyse, interpret and use information about their area and activities. He has written extensively on public access to environmental information, usability aspects of geographical technologies, and citizen science.

Michael Norton is ‘serial social entrepreneur’, who commissioned action-research for six social ventures on their franchise potential in 1993, held a national conference and published an accompanying handbook on ‘Charity Franchising’. In 1995 he established the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action to promote innovation, and has successfully replicated a range of social ventures including foundations run by young people (YouthBank), street children’s banks in South Asia (Children’s Development Bank), and crisis helplines for vulnerable children (ChildLine India).
In 2001, Michael conceived and co-founded UnLtd: the foundation for social entrepreneurs in the UK, which received an endowment of £100 million from the UK Lottery. UnLtd supports some 2,000 early-stage social entrepreneurs a year. Michael then replicated this foundation in India and South Africa. Michael is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cape Town business school and a Professor at the China Global Philanthropy Institute in Shenzhen.

For Michael's detailed profile visit: http://civa.org.uk/michael-norton/

Note

Event is free for all. Light snacks and beverages will be served thanks to our venue sponsor, SHAW Contract.