First conversation - March 5, 2013

[Emily Cloyd]

Our first conversation among partners was held on March 5, 2013. A short summary of the discussion follows.

Participants: Minda Berbeco (NCSE), Emily Cloyd (NCA), Willie Shubert (EJN), Jean Sideris (UCS), Jake Weltzin (NPN)

Proposed group description: Many NCAnet partners are engaged in efforts to involve the public in collecting data that are or could be used to inform climate change science. Such activities both help educate members of the public about climate change and provide additional data sources for analysis. However, there is not always a mechanism to feed these data into assessment activities. This group will: 

• identify existing sources of citizen science data that already inform climate science 
  
• suggest mechanisms to encourage greater participation in citizen science efforts related to climate change science
  

Additional discussion points:

• Citizens can and should be involved in science – but why is this a good idea? Science literacy, transparency of process, translation of science
  
• Where does citizen science fit into NCA's engagement strategy? How can it be better integrated into the strategy?
• How can we build capacity for citizen science through the assessment process?
• Government has to check information quality – review is important
• How do people know that their data will be accepted by the NCA? Is there a format that will make it more likely?
• Citizen science probably already being used in NCA – breeding bird surveys, phenology data, etc. - but we need to document where it is being used to provide examples for future integration
  
• This group could help identify existing citizen science contributions and new contributions (e.g., phenology indicator)
  
• Telling stories of how citizen science is being used can help people feel that NCA belongs to them - providing ownership for information and better chance it will be used by communities
• How can citizen science inform each of the components of the NCA (regions, sectors, responses, communication & engagement)?

Resources:

• http://www.citizenscience.org - especially information about the August 2012 conference (http://www.citizenscience.org/community/conference2012/ and report on conference in January 2013 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
• Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment special issue on citizen science from August 2012 (http://www.esajournals.org/toc/fron/10/6)
• Nature Climate Change cover article from February 2013

Actions:

• Initial members can start to think about other contacts who might be interested in joining this group (within and outside of NCAnet)

[Valerie J. Amor]

Sorry I missed the first meeting. All good comments below. Please let me know when the next meeting is scheduled so I may join in.
Valerie J. Amor