24-25 JSK Workshop 4: Conducting Citizen Science with Haley Davis

Overview

On Wednesday, December 4th, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted the fourth Junior SeaKeepers Program workshop for 2024-25 cohort students. Junior SeaKeepers workshops are aimed at personal and professional development for students throughout the year-long program, and we were thrilled to host students and give them a crash course in conducting citizen science research with SeaKeepers' Citizen Science Manager, Haley Davis, M.S.

We started the workshop by discussing why citizen scientists and citizen science, or crowdsourced projects, are so important in collecting data for remote regions like the ocean. This included a detailed introduction to SeaKeepers' citizen science projects that help to collect valuable, low-cost data with minimal resources for ecologists and other scientists globally. Haley was then able to use SeaKeepers' different active citizen science projects that engage our DISCOVERY Yacht Fleet, like the Neuston Net Research Collective and the Seabed 2030 Project, as case studies to identify the different key factors that go into making a citizen science project successful. These key factors included building a cause to support, ensuring data validity, creating comprehensive citizen scientist training, coordinating logistics for sample collection and transportation, and creating a space for citizen engagement. We finished the workshop with a call to action where students discussed their citizen science project ideas while identifying how they would fulfill each of these key factors and meet project objectives.

By attending workshops with the SeaKeepers team, our Junior SeaKeepers have the opportunity to develop personal and professional skills that will aid them in their advancement in STEM studies and careers. The information that the Junior SeaKeepers received as a part of the December Workshop will not only be helpful to their research projects but will be invaluable for their futures both consuming and creating scientific data. We hope that our workshops give students a glimpse into how much they have to gain out of this unique extracurricular program!