Transcript

JACK SEWELL:

Hi I’m Jack Sewell, from the Marine Biological Association, and I’m involved in several citizen science projects, trying to get schools, volunteers, members of the public involved in the collection of biological data.

I think that is really important to have citizen science, I think it’s a very, very powerful tool for engaging people in science, and for subjects around science. From my point of view, the marine environment and the marine biology, I think it is a very powerful tool for collecting data from a wide area, I’m a strong believer in lots of eyes, ears, and being able to collect large amounts of really useful information and bring it together.

TANIA JENKINS:

My name is Tania Jenkins and I work with Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences I am also one of the founders of an organisation called the EvoKE project and we aim to promote public understanding of evolution and citizen science has a huge role to play in public understanding in evolution. So why citizen science? Well, first of all, why not? Citizen and science is one of the, the ways that you as a citizen can empower and shape science.

The whole scientific process, you can be involved in citizen science by helping us answer the relevant questions.

What is relevant in your community? What is relevant in your garden? And for this there are loads of citizen science projects that you can join. For me, why citizen science, well, citizen science in my opinion, is one route to social empowerment and change and to shape how we view the world around us, and to shape how the scientific process works.

And how science, general can be made better with your help.

DAVID SLAWSON:

I’m David Slawson, I work for OPAL, which is the Open Air Laboratories, at Imperial College London. Why citizen science?

I think it had a broad range of benefits, so often people talk about data, which I think is very, very relevant, but my particular interest is outreach. So citizen science is great for giving people a learning experience, raising there awareness of things and perhaps even changing behaviours.