Thinking about starting a citizen science program and wondering how to make it successful? On this webinar, organizers from three marine citizen science programs along the U.S. West Coast will describe how their programs work and answer questions from webinar participants. The webinar will last 1.5 hours to allow ample time for questions/discussion after the presentations. Featured presenters and projects are:
- Jan Jan Freiwald from Reef Check California. Reef Check California trains and leads volunteer scuba divers as citizen scientists to conduct surveys of the fish, invertebrate and algae communities on nearshore rocky reefs to provide data to marine management and foster a science-based ocean stewardship. Learn more at www.reefcheck.org/rcca/rcca_home.php
- Julia Parrish of the University of Washington. The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) is a seabird monitoring program that generates baseline data to help assess patterns of seabird mortality due to natural and human-induced events across both time and space. Learn more at http://depts.washington.edu/coasst/what/vision.html
- Sarah Sarah Sikich of Heal the Bay. MPA Watch volunteers are trained to observe and collect human use data on coastal and marine resource use within and outside marine protected areas (MPAs). This program provides insights on how people are using recently established MPAs, and the data can be used to inform MPA management. Learn more at www.healthebay.org/get-involved/volunteer/mpa-watch.
The second webinar features Australian citizen science projects. This webinar is co-hosted by the EBM Tools Network and OpenChannels.