Citizen science on the Diane Rehm Show

Citizen science is clearly an idea whose time has come; I’ll be appearing on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss citizen science for the Environmental Outlook show on May 5. For those tuning in after the fact, the show will be archived online. Obviously, this is an amazing opportunity to share my passion for citizen science with (ulp!) 6-7 million listeners across the nation. I’ll be in the studio with Sharman Apt Russell, author of “Diary of a Citizen Scientist”, with call-in discussion from David Bonter of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Liz MacDonald of NASA and Aurorasaurus. I actually know David and Liz quite well–the citizen science world is small! Sharman and I also crossed paths at a conference a couple of years back, and I’m devouring her delightfully articulate book at the moment. It reminds me so much of my own dissertation fieldwork, studiously learning everything I could to identify birds and coming to understand the things I studied in so much more detail than I had previously imagined they could possess. I’m looking forward to the discussion with these fantastic panelists, and excited about the chance to talk about citizen science’s recent growth, achievements, and...