Saul Betesh

The article on “citizen scientists” or data collecting volunteers really brought to light the vast amount of research that relies on people willing to spend their time to either simply perform a hobby of theirs or to do what they think is right in helping a greater cause. Of course, this system is not perfect. Citizen scientists can make mistakes that would have no idea about because of their less-trained eyes. They might mistake two different species, for example. The only reason citizen-scientists are relied upon so much is because of the lack of funds needed to hire trained technicians and because of the vast amounts of ground that has to be covered for the increasing amounts of research projects. For example, an Appalachian trail that extends from Virginia to Pennsylvania would be impossible to cover with a small group of people. That is why so many citizen scientists are encouraged to participate and help out.

In the end the problem of using untrained citizen scientists balances out with parts of the goals of using them for research. Although there might be a few mistakes, which can either be discerned as bad data and thrown away or can be insignificant enough to incorporate it in the broader research project, volunteers are enjoying themselves being outdoors. More importantly, they become interested in scientific research and they feel accomplished that they contributed to a great project that involves important environmental issues.