When we were in Seattle a few weeks ago, we strolled along a path in Seward Park, a 300-acre parcel of forest land that runs along Lake Washington. We stumbled upon a section of the park that had, starting about 10 years ago, experienced a mysterious die-off of sword ferns, which are an important part of the understory of lowland conifer forests in this region.

In an attempt to figure out what is going on, the Friends of Seward Park partnered with Chronolog, which provides photo monitoring stations to encourage people to document natural changes in the area.

The company collects these images, submitted by the community, and turns them into a time-lapse video that shows these changes over days, seasons and years.

There are more than 130 sites like this one, from an eroding shoreline in Pennsylvania to the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui. It’s easy — you place your smartphone on the station, snap a photo and email it to the address on the sign. We did it that day.

We don’t live in Seattle but we felt like we contributed something useful to the city. It felt good, and we learned a lot more than we ever thought we would about sword ferns.

That’s the point of citizen or, more inclusively community science, which creates collaborations between the science community and the general public.

These community volunteers can do anything from designing experiments to collecting and analyzing data, often with tools and direction provided by project leaders. A lot of organizations work with community scientists, from NASA to the National Park Service.

In Hawaii some notable community science projects have included the state-run Hawaii Ulua and Papio Tagging Project; the annual Kolea Count, run by the Hawaii Audubon Society; and the Sanctuary Ocean Count, which tracks humpback whale migration to the Islands.

Right now University of Hawaii researchers are asking the public to document extreme water level events, also known as King Tides, this summer starting July 3. The goal of the King Tides Project is to better understand the impacts from sea-level rise and other coastal hazards by looking at these high tides, which will likely be average sea levels in the future.

But more than that explains Maya Walton, assistant director for research and fellowships at the UH Sea Grant College Program, the project encourages the public to participate in scientific research that can impact their communities.

Community science creates collaborations between science and the general public

“One of our primary aims of this project is to empower and energize people who are not scientists to go out and make observations,” Walton says. “We can all do science. All of us have important observations to contribute, and this collective picture we’re building together can help us better understand sea level rise and how it impacts our coast.”

The King Tides Project started in the summer of 2015, when a few scientists went out with data sheets and snapped photos of king tides at their favorite coastlines. Walton, who was part of that first group, took photos of high tide at Heeia Fishpond. One of her colleagues went to Ala Moana Regional Beach Park and another to Waikiki. “After that first summer, we thought, ‘There’s gotta be a better way to do this,'” she says.

The following year the group recruited the public to help, offering training workshops to educate volunteers about King Tides and how sea level rise could impact the places they care about.

To date, the project has received more than 3,800 photos from 484 community scientists on five islands — and these contributions are available for anyone to access and view. Walton says volunteers are varied, from kids participating with their parents to tourists visiting the Islands. What they have in common is a vested interest in a part of the island they love.

“We tell people to go to a place that you know well because you’ll have all this contextual information about what the beach looks like on other days of the year,” she says. “You will provide observations that are meaningful because you know the place, you’ve been there many times.”

Same goes for whale counting.

Maui’s Great Whale Count, run by the Pacific Whale Foundation, started in 1995 and volunteers counted an average of 45 humpback whales on the island that year. In 2019 it paired up with the Sanctuary Ocean Count, coordinating counts on the same days across the state to streamline the data.

More than 300 volunteers participated, collecting data from 42 sites on four islands.

The data collected helps scientists who study humpback whales, but the events also promote public awareness about these endangered marine mammals.

“Community scientists and their involvement are essential for any community science project,” says Jens Currie, chief scientist at the Pacific Whale Foundation. “Without them, the projects would not exist.”

He adds that their involvement in monitoring efforts “fosters a sense of ownership and stewardship of the project,” which often gets repeat volunteers every year.

“By actively participating in the Great Whale Count, community members develop a personal connection with the whales and their environment,” Currie says. “This heightened awareness often leads to increased support for conservation measures and sustainable practices that benefit not only the whales but the entire marine ecosystem.”

The project at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge includes four photo stations — two along the Kealia Coastal Boardwalk and two at the pond.

Since it started in 2021, more than 1,800 photos have been submitted by more than 1,700 contributors. The goal is to monitor seasonal changes and gather data on the protected wetland ecosystem, home to about 30 species of birds, including the endangered aeo (Hawaiian stilt) and alae keokeo (Hawaiian coot).

Participating in this project helps refuge staff manage this critical habitat for Hawaii’s native wetland birds.

But, like with other community science-based projects, it also gives people an opportunity to engage with and build meaningful connections to science. This comes as a pivotal time, when the dissemination of misinformation and conspiracy theories centered around scientific discoveries are all over the digital landscape.

In part, these projects put science back into our own hands and gives us tools to learn about the world around us. It makes us feel like we’re doing something, we’re part of our community, we can help.

Plus, there are real impacts to what community scientists can do.

For example, the data collected during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, the nation’s longest-running community science bird project, has contributed to the organization’s climate change report in 2014, which indicated 314 species of North American birds will lose more than 50% of their current climate range by 2080.

The data has been used by the Environmental Protection Agency as an indicator of climate change and helped develop the Audobon’s Common Birds in Decline Report, which showed the tragic decline of some of the nation’s most beloved birds.

Data collected during the Great Whale Count on Maui has been published in a peer-reviewed article and presented during a 2018 meeting that discussed the recent trends in humpback whale abundance, distribution and health in Hawaii and Alaska.

This shows we can, without Ph.Ds, contribute something meaningful to science.

“You don’t need to have formal training as a scientist to do science,” Walton says. “This is about how we can use science to better our communities.”