When I dutifully entered my “zero day” in the CoCoRaHS database today, their Message of the Day said:
The very first Citizen Science Day – Saturday, April 16th!
April 16, 2016 is the very first Citizen Science Day. We’re celebrating by telling you the what, who and why of Citizen Science so that you can join a project close to you and spread the word to all you know who wants to embrace science for humanity.
This celebration kicks off on April 16 and runs through May 21, 2016. Hundreds of events will be held throughout the country, and you can find them by clicking here: Citizen Science Events.
As you may already know, CoCoRaHS is a national Citizen Science Project (and one of the larger ones in the United States). We are so glad that you participate in it.
Enjoy the weekend and don’t forget to check out some of the other great Citizen Science projects out there!
I never heard of Citizen Science Day, so I checked out the first link. That went to a slick YouTube video that was the most content free video I’ve seen all day. (Okay, it was also the first I’ve seen today.) The text introducing the video was also content free, so I made this comment:
What: a “Day” that lasts 864 hours from 2016 Apr 16 through 2016 May 21.
Who: it doesn’t say any worth repeating.
Why: I don’t think it said anything, however, I know the why. Astronomy and ornithology appreciate citizen involvement. Climate science wishes we wouldn’t.
Where: A link to citizenscience.org which lists nothing in NH, MA, CT, or RI. (I’ll bring the page to the attention of the Science Cafe folks in NH.) Other parts of the country are better represented, so take a look.
Maybe some people need slick videos to get interested in science. Citizen scientists don’t. If you included my text in the description, everyone could have skipped the video and would be looking up activities or entering new ones now.
Check out the database of events at http://scistarter.com/national-citizen-science-day . It’s US-only, except for one event in Germany, the 1st International ECSA Conference on Citizen Science.
And, check out CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. The data they collect is often reported in NWS reports and used in various research. It’s mainly “just” precipitation information, so Co-op stations provide more information, but their goal is to create a dense network of precip data to catch small events like thunderstorms and spring showers. We don’t need as dense a network of temperature data.