Citizen Scientist
I am a big advocate of involving people in science. I was never taken with the fact in college that my papers needed to be “tech-up”. I always tried to write as if my mother was going to read my papers and I wanted her to understand them. This apparently was too low brow for my teachers. What I learned from this was not to use words only found in dictionaries when I write. I learned that academia sometimes doesn’t take non-academics into consideration when we write. We want to impress our peers, and I feel we go a little overboard. In the process we unintentionally alienate non-academics by talking over their heads unnecessarily.
When I got out of college I realized that people liked science fine, they just didn’t have a lot of opportunities to interact with it. People didn’t have the opportunities to explore science after schooling, so I wanted to create a situation where adults could. In a stroke of cleverness, I came up with the term Citizen Scientist, only to find out later that this term has been in use for a long time.
Citizen Scientists are abundant in the world, as are Amateur everything. I’m not using either term in a derogatory way, Amateur simply means they don’t have a piece of paper backing up their experience. I have met several of both categories over the years and have been the benefiter of their knowledge. I would almost say I’ve learned a bit more practical application from them than I did in school.
So, to honor them and to help others who might be interested in becoming Citizen Scientist’s themselves I am adding a page on my blog dedicated to Amateur and Citizen Scientist groups. Come check it out and see if there is something you might like to do, and then apply. There is no reason for your love of science to be lost as you grow-up.
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