Citizen Science Center

This area will serve as a clearinghouse for NRC guests that wish to enlist in “Citizen Science” projects. Visitors become participants in ongoing, active research projects by collecting, submitting and/or analyzing data on the Museum floor or at the Museum’s 46-acre field station, Prairie Ridge.

Citizen Science opportunities will afford NRC scientists the ability to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. For example, NRC visitors will be able to conduct research in partnership with Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) on its SCOPE (Stellar Classification Online Public Exploration) project.

NRC visitors can access a million star images on scanned photographs—that have never before been classified—stored in the Astronomical Photographic Data Archive available online. Visitors will be the first to measure the temperature of a star, compare their features to those of the Sun, classify these stars according to their temperatures and luminosities and log this information into the data archive. Graduate students interning as lab techs will be on hand to confirm and verify research logged by NRC visitors.

For other projects, such as Monarch Watch, visitors may survey migratory populations. The Citizen Science Center will serve as headquarters for these projects, allowing visitors to revisit the status of these studies with each NRC visit.

Research projects include: Sustainable Green Technology; Project Budburst; Monarch Watch/Frog Watch; Bird and Bat Surveys, Riverwatch/Streamwatch; Nest Watch; and Ozone Biomonitoring, to name just a few.