MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • May 7, 2023
Researchers have harnessed the power of interested naturalists to gather data. The term “citizen science” was coined in 1989 to describe projects that rely on the collective contributions of amateur scientists. A just completed example of citizen science is the Maine Bird Atlas, a five-year study to document the geographic distribution of breeding birds and wintering birds in Maine. This project had contributions from over 3,000 volunteers who submitted more than 125,000 checklists. That’s the power of a crowd. ~ Herb Wilson