Evaluation of citizen science as a low-cost tool for marine mammal research and education in Southeast Alaska

This citizen science project evaluates a mobile application as a method for collecting low-cost regional-scale marine mammal data in Southeast Alaska. The project collaborates with the Alaska Whale Foundation and Smallmelo... [ view full abstract ]

This citizen science project evaluates a mobile application as a method for collecting low-cost regional-scale marine mammal data in Southeast Alaska. The project collaborates with the Alaska Whale Foundation and Smallmelo Geographic Information Services to produce a citizen science version of Whale mAPP. Whale mAPP is a GIS-based mobile application tool that allows citizen scientists to collect observations of marine mammals. Traditional methods of gathering and managing data to map marine mammal distributions require extensive time and resources. Whale mAPP allows anyone to submit and visualize observations over a broad regional-scale area. For this project, all data was collected between June and September 2014 in Southeast Alaska. The usability of these data will be determined by comparing marine mammal distribution maps based on (1) citizen science data collected via Whale mAPP and (2) standardized survey data. Furthermore, the educational benefits of participating will be assessed with user surveys. Overall, this project will assess the usability of citizen science data to understand marine mammal distribution patterns, determine the educational benefits of Whale mAPP, and provide critical feedback to revise the mobile application.