You are here:
ESIP’s new ICUC smartphone app - linking citizen scientists to their own places of wonder
Citation:
Parlee, K., C. Tilburg, AND Jim Latimer. ESIP’s new ICUC smartphone app - linking citizen scientists to their own places of wonder. Regional Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine (RARGOM), Portsmouth, NH, October 13, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation will provide information to advance the goal of engaging citizen scientists in understanding, protecting, and valuing the coastal marine environment
Description:
The Gulf of Maine Council’s EcoSystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) was formed in 2006 to look at changes in the health of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem through the use of environmental indicators. ESIP has always recognized the value of datasets generated by citizen scientists. To harness more of the energy and curiosity of citizen scientists in the region, ESIP has released a new smartphone app: ICUC (“I See You See”). ESIP’s initial approach to indicator development focused on seven ecosystem themes, which were based on priority issues identified by scientists, decision-makers, and other stakeholders. To date, ESIP has made indicator data available online through its Indicator Reporting Tool and fact sheets published on seven of its indicator themes: aquaculture, aquatic habitats, climate change, coastal development, contaminants, eutrophication, and fisheries. ESIP’s community of users, which include academics, governmental, and non-governmental individuals, has grown dramatically since its formation. Concurrently, the citizen science movement has connected citizens in the US and Canada using observational science. The new app provides users with information on monitoring activities in the Gulf of Maine and the opportunity to participate in knowledge collection in their local areas by uploading smartphone photos at specific locations to an on-line photo library. As the photo library grows, both in number of photos and number of locations, users will be able to observe environmental changes at each location over time via an associated web page on the ESIP website (http://www.gulfofmaine.org/2/esip-homepage/).