§Jg The Battalion
Frontiers
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Monday • April-
-Mon
Research goes to the birds
Science understanding monitored through citizen scientists
By Katherine Arnold
Special to The Battalion
While most of the sciences in
volve hours of tedious labor in a lab
oratory taking measurements, con
ducting experiments and analyzing
data, the Cornell Lab of Ornitholo
gy based at Cornell University has a
different approach — letting volun
teers across the country collect data
by looking out their back window.
Such projects include Project
FeederWatch, Classroom Feeder-
Watch, Project Pigeon Watch and
the Cornell Nest Box Network. For a
small fee (about $20), amateur bird
watchers receive educational mate
rials about the project and direc
tions for recording information
about the types of birds they see
and their activities. Participants
then submit their findings back to
ornithologists at Cornell.
These types of projects, often re
ferred to as “citizen science,” hope
to both foster science education
and provide a valuable resource of
data collection, said Dr. Bruce
Lewenstein, associate professor in
the Department of Communication
at Cornell University, who is also in
volved in evaluating the effective
ness of these projects as a way to
foster scientific understanding.
“These projects have as their
goal some attempt to popularize
science; that is, to make science
more accessible to nonscientists,”
Lewenstein said. “It gives people a
sense of being involved in a project
that has meaning.”
And, in fact, the projects are
meaningful. The information col
lected is used to track trends in pop
ulations, activity cycles and breed
ing habits. “Wed like to think that
citizen science is a way to tap into
people’s enthusiasm,” he said.
Lewenstein spoke to students
and faculty at Texas A&M on Thurs
day about citizen science projects
and their function as ways to pro
mote scientific understanding. His
visit was sponsored by the Center
for Science and Technology Policy
and Ethics at Texas A&M University.
Lewenstein’s work with one of the
projects, the Cornell Nest Box Net
work, involves assessing what the
bird watchers learn by participating
in the project. The evaluators look
at bird knowledge, environmental
attitude, overall perceptions and.at
titudes toward science by having
participants fill out evaluation
forms and by interviewing partici
pants via telephone or mail. Pre
liminary results have shown that
this citizen science project ap
proach has been useful.
Beyond the success of the local
projects, these results at some point
will be compared to overall scientif
ic understanding, Lewenstein said.
“We need to understand the re
lationship between these individual
local projects and the global level of
science literacy,” he said.
Projects such as these fill a need
for fostering scientific understand
ing, said Dr. Susanna Priest, associate
professor of joumalism at Texas A&M
and director for the Center of Science
and Technology Policy and Ethics.
“There is a strong and widely
recognized need for more ways to
involve nonscientists in making de
cisions about science and science
policy,” she said. “People who are
not scientists need to be able to re
late science to their everyday lives
or they may not see the value in sci
entific research.”
Several odier projects work to in
corporate nonscientists into scientif
ic research. The Globe Program is a
government-sponsored program
that involves ordinary citizens in en
vironmental research. For children,
the National Geographic Kids Net
work works with schools to develop
curricula to turn kids into scientists
by having them collect rain samples,
study solar energy and look at prob
lems cities face with trash disposal.
Programs like this are most suit
ed to the natural sciences, said
Gene Charleton, science writer for
the communications division of the
Texas Engineering Experiment Sta
tion, and have been applied in as
tronomy and archaeology.
“Look around and think of how
many political decisions are based
on scientific questions,” Charleton
said. “People need to understand
science to make good decisions.”
Lewenstein said he hopes more
citizen science projects can be cre
ated to provide an opportunity for
the nonscientist to learn more
about the scientific community.
“You’re not just talking to people
about science, you’re engaging peo
ple in science,” he said. “You learn
not only what science is capable of,
but what it’s not capable of.”
For more information on the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird
watching projects, visit the Web site
at birdsource.cornell.edu.
On to the millineum
Bruce Blair, a senior computer science major, calibrates the light sensors on his robot before a runi
demonstration in the Bright building Friday afternoon.
PC sales still moving upward
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Despite fears of cooling de
mand and swollen inventories, the personal computer in
dustry has continued to grow this year.
Appetite for inexpensive PCs helped push growth of
worldwide and U.S. shipments into the double digits
during the January-May period, according to two mar
ket research companies: International Data Corp. and
Dataquest Inc.
“We believe... end user demand is healthy.!
issues that are making things interesting. -
Hause, an analyst with I DC in Mountain Vim.
Domestic shipments grew 16 percent durj:
quarter compared with the same period a y«
cording to Dataquest, based in San Jose. IDCi
14 percent gain. Shipments worldwide rose 1
according to Dataquest, and 10 percent, accoi
^ uie
at ]\tatrt|{gate
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By: Chris Cook
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