THAT AMATEURS are playing a significant role in the progress of scientific research is not a new phenomenon. Until the 20th century, all science was the work of amateurs,really. Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, began his life's work as an unpaid amateur, albeit a privileged and well-connected one. Gregor Mendel, a father of genetics, crossbred pea plants between his duties as an Augustinian monk. In the late 1800s, Henrietta Swan Leavitt and other young women were hired to sort photo plates of stars at Harvard College Observatory as a human "computer." A graduate with a single college astronomy course under her belt, Leavitt developed a way of measuring the brightness of stars that became basic to calculating distances in space.

Around this time, the first generation of scientists to be themselves taught by trained scientists gave rise to the perception that only professionals were qualified to do "real" research. By the turn of the century, amateurs had been marginalized. But, in the past couple of decades, that mindset has shifted.

"We're learning a whole lot more about the world than we could without amateur scientists," says Shawn Carlson, a nuclear physicist who left academia in 1994 to found the Chicago-based Society for Amateur Scientists. "If you had to pay people to go out and get all this data, it would be a very expensive proposition. Now, finally, we are able to vector the resources of the greater community to solve issues that have always existed."

Armed with more affordable tools and technologies, as well as an enhanced ability to communicate, thanks to the internet and cheap long distance, citizen scientists are better equipped than ever. Bolstered by links to organizations such as the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Environment Canada's Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN), they've convinced professionals that amateurs are not only tolerable but indispensable.

Moreover, citizen science dovetails with a number of bona fide trends. Beyond local empowerment and community management of natural resources, it meshes with the popularity of do-it-yourself projects as well as the mounting psychological evidence that people have an intrinsic need to connect with nature. The real beauty of citizen science may be that it gets us back to our roots - science as the outcome of a natural, unquenchable curiosity. Young or old, educated or illiterate, anyone can pay attention. Coming from all walks of life, citizen scientists bring unprecedented diversity to the pursuit of knowledge.

Environment Canada - Wildlife and Landscape Science.

Science For Citizens

Citizen Science Central