Cultural Heritage Institutions and Citizen Science - Part 1

This is the first of two episodes that will focus on how citizen science can be done by and within cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums. In this episode, we’ll focus on how natural history museums and public libraries have involved members of their communities in projects that can contribute to local, national, and global understandings of scientific questions. 

 

We speak with Richard Smart, one of the managers of the Community Science program at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; Sara Medina, a volunteer community scientists at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; Dan Stanton, a librarian at Arizona State University who supports the School for the Future of Innovation in Society; and Robin Salthouse,  the Adult Services Supervisor Librarian at the Southeast Regional library in Gilbert, Arizona.

Listen to learn how the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County studies urban biodiversity with the help of community scientists, how Arizona State University and local public libraries collaborate to create citizen science kits for library patrons to check out and more! 

Music for this episode is from Blue Dot Sessions, used under a Creative Commons license. A transcript is available here.

Resources for Natural History Museums

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County - Community Science
https://nhm.org/community-science-nhm

NHM Community Science Projects

• SuperProject
• SLIME
• RASCals
• BioSCAN

Resources for Libraries

SciStarter IMLS Grant: Libraries as Community Hubs for Citizen Science

Librarian's Guide to Citizen Science

Maricopa County Library System

Maricopa County Citizen Science Webinar

Arizona State University Library Guide on Citizen Science

NASA's GLOBE project

GLOBE - SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive)

Measuring Light in the Night Kit

Globe at Night

Exploring Biodversity Library Kit

Zombee Hunting Library Kit