How Do Young Community and Citizen Science Volunteers Support Scientific Research on Biodiversity? The Case of iNaturalist

Abstract

Online community and citizen science (CCS) projects have broadened access to scientific research and enabled different forms of participation in biodiversity research; however, little is known about whether and how such opportunities are taken up by young people (aged 5–19). Furthermore, when they do participate, there is little research on whether their online activity makes a tangible contribution to scientific research. We addressed these knowledge gaps using quantitative analytical approaches and visualisations to investigate 249 youths’ contributions to CCS on the iNaturalist platform, and the potential for the scientific use of their contributions. We found that nearly all the young volunteers’ observations were ‘verifiable’ (included a photo, location, and date/time) and therefore potentially useful to biodiversity research. Furthermore, more than half were designated as ‘Research Grade’, with a community agreed-upon identification, making them more valuable and accessible to biodiversity science researchers. Our findings show that young volunteers with lasting participation on the platform and those aged 16–19 years are more likely to have a higher proportion of Research Grade observations than younger, or more ephemeral participants. This study enhances our understanding of young volunteers’ contributions to biodiversity research, as well as the important role professional scientists and data users can play in helping verify youths’ contributions to make them more accessible for biodiversity research.

Empowering youth in citizen science and citizen social science

“…Empowering youth in CS/CSS is a complex process that has been actively explored within the citizen science community in various contexts. A small selection of these research questions include: youth agency [5,6], relevant stakeholder engagement [7], youth setting the research agenda [8,9], formal learning [10], informal learning [10][11][12][13], limited youth engagement in CSS projects [2, 14], and the quality of youth research contributions [15]. The practical experience and knowledge shared by participants of this workshop builds on this work, but there is limited space within this paper to critically engage with our results or to set them in the broader context.…”

Ecosystem Explorers

“…4, pp. 216-221, ISSN 0002-7685, electronic ISSN 1938-4211 younger individuals as a way of promoting citizen science while engaging them with nature (Aristeidou et al, 2021;Echeverria et al, 2021).…”

“…For example, undergraduate courses have leveraged iNaturalist to get students engaged with biodiversity in a more meaningful way, as opposed to being passive in the classroom (Niemiller et al, 2021). iNaturalist has also been utilized with younger individuals as a way of promoting citizen science while engaging them with nature (Aristeidou et al, 2021; Echeverria et al, 2021).…”

Youth engagement in ecological restoration

“…The application is free, making it an invaluable resource to include in classrooms, workshops, and internships. In addition, observations made on the application are stored in global repositories, making them available to researchers (Aristeidou et al 2021a(Aristeidou et al , 2021b.…”