Citizen science boosts environmental awareness: study

Citizen science boosts environmental awareness and advocacy and can lead to broader public support for conservation efforts, according to a new study conducted in India.
Researchers at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment surveyed 115 people who had recently participated in citizen science projects in India with the Wildlife Conservation Society, US, and the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bangalore.
The study, led by PhD student McKenzie Johnson, found that in addition to gaining environmental knowledge and skills such as population monitoring and species identification, participants in the projects often became environmental advocates, sharing their knowledge within their social networks.

"Citizen science is having an impact in creating environmental advocates, many of whom are able to diffuse knowledge and create a network of people interested in environmental conservation," said Dr Erika Weinthal, Lee Hill Snowdon Professor of Environmental Policy.
Previous studies have shown that citizen science helps boost environmental literacy and raise public awareness, Weinthal noted, but this is the first to demonstrate that it also helps build environmental networks.
Fifteen of the people surveyed reported that they had gone on to create their own conservation organisation after participating in citizen science projects. Others changed careers to become full-time wildlife conservationists.

"This shows the wonderful possibilities of experiential learning and the ways it can motivate people to drastically alter the path they believed themselves to be on," said Johnson.
"I hope this study demonstrates the potential for citizen science to not only engage individuals in scientific activities and learning, but to have an advocacy impact that could potentially reverberate in communities far beyond the actual project participants," Johnson said.
The study was published in the journal Global Environmental Change.