Citizen science: a new approach to observing the sea

Ever since ancient times, the seas and the oceans have exerted a strong attraction that has encouraged mankind to go out and explore them. But in spite of the great interest in researching them, even today, to a large extent, many of the characteristics of marine ecosystems are still unknown to us, a circumstance that it is mainly owed to the enormous difficulties involved in observing this environment. In recent years, new approaches have been introduced to obtain observations that augment those obtained with conventional science, and which are based on the new concept of “citizen science”. In citizen science projects, people without any specific scientific training take part in order to compile large sets of data, collaborate on their analysis and even to build their own instruments. This new system of collaboration offers great potential in terms of marine research. In this lecture, the speaker will be presenting examples of marine research activities based on this new approach.

Cycle: Science on Monday: The Blue Planet. Aproaches to our Knowledge of the Marine Environment

Organized by: The Residence for Researchers, CSIC-Delegación en Cataluña, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (ICM)