Citizen Science: Exploring the Potential of Natural Resource Monitoring Programs to Influence Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

Citizen science programs monitoring ecosystems and natural resources are promoted for their potential to foster environmental awareness and stewardship. We surveyed volunteers in natural resource monitoring programs to determine whether they perceived changes in their environmental attitudes and decision-making. The majority of participants perceived changes in their attitude toward the resource being monitored, but not in their decision-making toward the resource they monitored or toward the environment more broadly. While the resources volunteers monitored in this study were diverse, program volunteers themselves were not. Participants were largely white, older, affluent, well-educated, held strong preexisting environmental attitudes, and were involved in other conservation, research, or management efforts. While engaging this narrow range of self-selected volunteers has the potential to reinforce existing pro-environmental attitudes through strengthening social networks, citizen science programs can increase their potential to promote attitude and behavioral change by making a concerted effort to engage a more diverse "citizenry."

Participant Outcomes of Biodiversity Citizen Science Projects: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Toomey and Domroese [48] studied two projects, one of which focused on biodiversity. Four authors reported on a study across several projects: eight projects [49], fourteen projects [50], and eighteen projects [30,51].…”

Aligning citizen science with best practice: Threatened species conservation in Australia

“…The majority of citizen science efforts for threatened species in Australia based their activities on either implied or explicit objectives aiming to improve our understanding of threatened species themselves and/or the key threatening processes (Figure c). However, the methods often required to achieve such conservation goals (e.g., accurate population estimates via presence and absence surveys, density estimates) can be onerous for voluntary participants to adhere to (Chase & Levine, ; Eveleigh, Jennett, Blandford, Brohan, & Cox, ). A secondary goal appeared to be education and raising awareness among participants and the public more broadly.…”

“…A secondary goal appeared to be education and raising awareness among participants and the public more broadly. Herein lies a common trade‐off among many citizen science efforts (Chase & Levine, ; Frigerio et al, ). This conundrum can lead to a mismatch between the actual and communicated objectives of the project among all relevant stakeholders (Eveleigh et al, ).…”

Du naturaliste expert à l’élève : Enjeux de la diversification des objectifs d’un programme de sciences participatives en France

“…Au-delà de l'acquisition de connaissances, des travaux attestent du rôle transformatif de ces dispositifs sur les attitudes vis-à-vis de l'objet d'étude, bien que cela ne semble pas aller jusqu'au changement comportemental pour les dispositifs étudiés (Chase et Levine, 2018). Cependant, une étude menée auprès des participants de l'Opération Papillons a mis en évidence des changements de pratiques de jardinage suite à la participation à l'observatoire : limitation de la quantité de produits phytosanitaires utilisés ou mise en place de zones de friche au sein du jardin (Cosquer et coll., 2012), changements qui persistent chez les participants de la première heure depuis maintenant 10 ans.…”