Last week I had the opportunity to take part in a citizen science forum organized by the White House. It was inspiring to see how committed the White House is to harnessing the power of citizen science. A number of exciting announcements were made during the event. For one, the Federal Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit was officially released. This toolkit, developed with the support and collaboration of over 25 federal agencies, provides step-by-step instructions, case studies, and other resources to help scientists use citizen science in their research. As you might imagine, Zooniverse projects are well represented in the successful case studies section! Then John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, gave a talk where he announced the release of a memorandum promoting the use of citizen science by Federal Agencies. Towards the end of the forum Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) announced a new bill authorizing citizen science and crowdsourcing. This bill is co-sponsored by Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), making it bi-partisan! During his talk Senator Coons described how he and his family were citizen scientists themselves and have spent many evenings collecting data for a wide variety of different Zooniverse projects! So next time you are chatting with someone on Talk, know that he or she could very well be a senator or representative. Perhaps even President Obama has a Zooniverse account?

In between these exciting announcements there were panels on Community Science Leaders, Oceans and Coasts, Democratized Tools, Water and Agriculture, and Communities and Health. A number of really exciting citizen science projects were highlighted during these panels. These ranged from investigations of the impact of aggressive policing to surfboards that collect oceanographic data to the development of methods for utilizing indigenous traditional knowledge to our own Floating Forests! You can watch the entire forum here.

I had the honor to serve on the Oceans and Coasts panel with some HUGE names in the marine science world: Dr. Alex Dehgan, Dr. Sylvia Earle (aka Her Deepness), Dr. Daniel Pauly, and Dr. Janet Coffey. During the panel we talked about the importance of the ocean and how little we know about it. The oceans play a central role is supporting human life. Yet we’ve mapped less of the ocean floor at high resolution than the surface of Mars, Venus, and the Moon combined. We have limited information about the changes that coastal ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves, and giant kelp have been experiencing in recent decades. Citizen science provides a powerful method for collecting data that will allow us to better understand and protect these critical ecosystems.

Read more here: http://wp.me/p3NFCj-oc

We were delighted to have our own Kyle Cavanaugh presenting Floating Forests at the White House Citizen Science Forum earlier this week. Check out the video of his presentation below!