BioBlitzes help science communicators engage local communities in environmental research

Abstract

There is growing recognition that effective science communication should not merely focus on addressing scientific literacy but must also open dialogue between scientists and the public, build trust, and increase public interest in environmental research. Citizen science BioBlitzes offer a useful approach for science communicators to address many of these key aims. We explore the BioBlitz concept, learnings and outcomes based on a case study of a BioBlitz held in Sydney, Australia. We found that participants valued learning about biodiversity on the day and importantly, all participants (scientists and citizen scientists) rated interacting and learning from the experience as one of the main benefits.

Instagram and the science museum: a missed opportunity for public engagement

“…Several science museums and centers have made shifts to promote public engagement [Rudloff, 2013], for example by allowing visitors to access and participate in research collections and laboratory spaces [Bowler, Buchanan-Smith and Whiten, 2012]. Some museums have begun to promote and incorporate participatory citizen science activities into their exhibits as well as research and collections work 4,5 [Hill et al, 2012;Roger and Klistorner, 2016;Ballard et al, 2017;Spear, Pauly and Kaiser, 2017]. These activities are beneficial in terms of increasing the time that visitors spend at museums [Bowler, Buchanan-Smith and Whiten, 2012], building public trust in science [Fiske and Dupree, 2014], increasing public understanding of the scientific process and interest in science [Stilgoe, Lock and Wilsdon, 2014] and building capacity for evidence-based decision making [Jensen and Buckley, 2014;Bonney et al, 2015;Selin et al, 2016].…”

Museum specimens of terrestrial vertebrates are sensitive indicators of environmental change in the Anthropocene

“…Not only the general public but also often scientists and wildlife managers themselves oppose continued collecting, often owing to misconceptions about the perceived negative impact of museum collecting on vertebrate populations [140,141]. Involvement of the public through citizen science in ongoing specimenbased documentation of biodiversity, for example, through 'BioBlitzes', and in decision making as to what to collect, will be essential [142]. Specimens and associated data can readily be incorporated into educational enterprises and provide powerful opportunities for student-led, inquiry-driven lessons about diverse aspects of our natural world, including climate change and the Anthropocene [136,143,144].…”

Open Science and the Science-Society Relationship

“…The area of science education is highly relevant, as learning is an integral part of every form of science communication (Bucchi and Trench 2008;Thaler and Shiffman 2015) or public engagement initiative (Dijkstra 2017;Jennett et al 2016;Roger and Klistorner 2016). In this area, the shift from oneway science communication to interactive public engagement is also connected to the abandonment of the deficit model (Bauer et al 2007;Besley and Tanner 2011;Logan 2001).…”

“…withJensen and Buckley (2014) illustrate the usefulness of science festivals as one technique of public involvement for arranging informal communication and making science more engaging. Citizen science projects also proved to be beneficial, especially for gaining new knowledge(Bonney et al 2016;Land-Zandstra et al 2016;Masters et al 2016), producing new findings by non-scientists themselves(Alender 2016;Stodden 2010), promoting a dialogue amongst citizens and science(Del Savio et al 2016;Dickerson-Lange et al 2016;Roger and Klistorner 2016), and giving the agency to citizens(Del Savio et al 2016).…”