This article about citizen science mostly focused on how there is a whole other level of scientific researchers that most people do now know about. They are called “citizen scientists”, which is a more polite and professional way of simply saying amateur volunteers. The term “citizen scientist” was coined in the 1990’s but the idea of having nonpaid help to document when plants grow, observe when birds and other animals migrate and etc. These scientists do everything that they possibly can with their set of skills. The article honestly admits the reason that they use these volunteers is because of money. “We can’t afford them,” states Donald Owen, when talking about the graduate students and real scientists.
While it is understandable that using volunteers to collect data that would otherwise would require tedious and not really “scientific” work, I feel as if it is condescending because the citizen scientists are only being payed attention to because they are doing free work simply because the various research programs can not afford to higher high-end researchers to do their jobs. There is no arguing that the volunteers are helpful however, because over 60,000 sign up to participate in an annual Christmas bird count. It is also a great way for people who are interested in informal science to spark their interests and explore the realm of science learning, which relates to one of the six strands discussed in chapter 2 of our textbook.
While it is arguable that acquiring volunteers to do most of the tedious data keeping work for free sounds a bit patronizing, if it is possible for any of these volunteers to become interested in becoming a scientist professionally, then it is worth it in the end and helps shape the future scientific community for the better.