"Everyone needs science - science needs everyone." Terry McGlynn
Citizen volunteers have become an integral part of strategies to monitor and manage natural resources, track species at risk, and conserve protected areas. Their efforts stewarded by scientists that provide protocols and training and ultimately analyze the data have become collectively known as Citizen Science (see Dickinson et al 2012: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/110236/full).
Citizen Science harnesses the power of a large workforce while also providing new tools for engaging learners. Powerful consequences are both large-scale high-resolution datasets, otherwise prohibitively expensive, and informed citizens.
Taking this benefit to a new level, Citizen Action through Science, aims to provide communities with scientific support to potentially develop projects that directly benefit them. The flagship project is the “University Park Community Mosquito Control”, where residents have organized to remove mosquito habitat from their yards and deploy traps that kill egg laying female mosquitoes. Their “action” is urban mosquito control, which will remove nuisance and decrease risk of Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.
University Park, MD
Click on the map if you are a resident of University Park and want to obtain traps. You will be directed through the necessary steps to enter your information in order to obtain a trap.
Please contact Dina.Fonseca@rutgers.edu if your community would like to develop a Citizen AcTS program. For information regarding the general approach being developed in University Park, MD please link to the online Webinar hosted by Sustainable Maryland.