Taking citizen science to new heights in Africa: lessons from the Animal Demography Unit, University of Cape Town

Life is busy and getting busier. Travel is expensive and getting more so. In the face of these challenges, how do we motivate long-term citizen scientists to keep going, and how do we convince new ones to start, when doing so... [ view full abstract ]

Life is busy and getting busier. Travel is expensive and getting more so. In the face of these challenges, how do we motivate long-term citizen scientists to keep going, and how do we convince new ones to start, when doing so takes time and often requires travel? In the Animal Demography Unit (at the University of Cape Town, South Africa), where we manage a large and increasing number of long-running citizen science projects, we have found many ways of doing this, with impressive results. For example, our second Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2) has been running for seven years – this project requires a substantial commitment of time and energy. In spite of this, rates of data submission are increasing. We make extensive use of social media, in a range of ways, to maintain daily contact with our large team of citizen scientists, and to recruit new ones. We have also been experimenting with running Citizen Scientist Days and a range of other types of public engagement exercises, with great success. In this presentation, I examine project participation in relation to the timing and type of outreach and communication activities, to draw some lessons about the most effective of these activities. In this age of fast-paced change, however, we've also learned the importance of 'keeping it fresh' when it comes to communication, and particularly social media. I will present our current research into methods for citizen science outreach, as well as into academic attitudes to popular science communication, and how this relates to citizen science participation.