Trinity partners with Irish Times on Citizen Science initiative
Posted on: 18 January 2018
Trinity College Dublin has partnered with the Irish Times on an exciting Citizen Science initiative that will see a number of different projects developed and promoted.
Members of the public are warmly encouraged to contribute by answering online questionnaires around different scientific topics, with their responses then used to inform real research. Every few weeks, a new online questionnaire will appear, alongside an article penned by a scientist. People can still contribute to previous questionnaires if they choose.
Links to each new article and questionnaire will appear here as they are published, and they can also be found on social media with #CitizenScienceIE
Dr Joseph Roche from Trinity’s School of Education is leading the initiative and wrote the first article in the series, which explains how citizen science has the potential to offer a more democratic way of carrying out research. His article appeared with a questionnaire about pollinators, offering people the chance to contribute to related research.
A few weeks later, Professor Jane Stout from Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences wrote the second article in the series, along with colleague, Dr Hannah Hamilton. The article focuses on pollinators and the significant ecological and financial benefits they provide. Concurrently, the next questionnaire asks people to provide their opinions on vaccination.
Dr Joseph Roche said: “We are very excited about the prospect of helping different communities to work with scientists and tackle some of the biggest challenges facing society. There are already lots of great citizen science projects all over Ireland and this partnership with the Irish Times will help to raise awareness of what is going on and how we can all get involved.”
Alongside Trinity and the Irish Times, the Citizen Science initiative also has the support of the Environmental Protection Agency and Science Foundation Ireland through its Discover Programme. Feedback, suggestions and questions can be emailed to info@citizenscience.ie