Track Citizen Science Updates Weekly
🔬 A repository of resources related to citizen, community-based and/or non-institutional science
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Nov 11 - Nov 17, 2024
Software / Modeling and Computation
- BOINC - Open-source cross-platform volunteer computing network connecting computers of volunteers/citizen scientists to scientific research projects. Used by CERN and universities around the world.
Publishing and Doing Research / Other
- Taskade - Collaborative outliner, notes, and task manager.
Oct 09 - Oct 15, 2023
Tools and Equipment / 3D Printing and Fabrication
- Printables - Database of 3D-printable models with contests and an active community
Jul 04 - Jul 10, 2022
Software / Graphs and Visualization
- GraphViz - tool for creating scientific graphs
Jun 20 - Jun 26, 2022
Software / Publishing , Collaboration and Organization
- eu-citizen.science - links to 200 projects
- Zooniverse - website for zoo & universe projects
Jul 20 - Jul 26, 2020
Publishing and Doing Research / Other
- Library Genesis - An online tool for gaining access to scientific articles that are normally beyond paywalls.
Apr 23 - Apr 29, 2018
Other Resources / Other Types of Support
- Detroit Future City: A Field Guide to Working with Lots - Guides for urban agriculture from Detroit.
Mar 26 - Apr 01, 2018
Publishing and Doing Research / Other
- SciHub - Another site for gaining access to science papers that are normally behind paywalls.
Feb 19 - Feb 25, 2018
Software / Modeling and Computation
- ALOHA - A piece of software disributed by the EPA that models the threat zone for various types of chemical spill and explosion hazards.
- vegan - R package for statistical work in community ecology.
Jan 08 - Jan 14, 2018
Literature / Citizen Science Practice
- Lead Concentrations in Inner-City Soils As a Factor in the Child Lead Problem - A 1983 pharmacology paper detailing a low-cost, low-tech method of doing soil heavy metal testing.
- How to Run a Feminist Science Lab Meeting - A guide by the Civic Laboratory in St. John's, Newfoundland
- First-Ever Video May Show Pig-Like Animals Mourning Their Dead - An example of an important scientific discovery being made by someone who was not an institutional academic (an 8-year-old boy). The boy received lead author credit in a scientific paper.
Oct 09 - Oct 15, 2017
Software / Publishing , Collaboration and Organization
- RapidPro (⭐854) - An open-source platform for building scalable applications that users can interact with via SMS.
Literature / Citizen Science Practice
- Spectrophotometric Determination of Lead - Another simple DIY lead testing procedure.
Jul 17 - Jul 23, 2017
Tools and Equipment / Environmental Science and Geology
- AWEsome - An affordable airborne wind turbine prototype.
Jul 10 - Jul 16, 2017
Art and Science Spaces / Other
- The Waag Society - An institute for collaborative art, science and technology based in the Netherlands.
Jun 12 - Jun 18, 2017
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- SpikerBox - A bioamplifier for DIY neuroscience.
Funding and Support / Other Types of Support
- Welcome to How To Grow (almost) Anything in GaudiLabs - Switzerland - A guide to setting up a basic microbiology lab.
May 15 - May 21, 2017
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- DremelFuge - A biology centrifuge that takes the form of a dremel attachment.
- MinION - An affordable, portable DNA/RNA sequencer.
May 08 - May 14, 2017
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
- Whole Earth Catalog - A site that contains the remnants of a famous late 1960s and early 1970s maker/ecology magazine.
Apr 24 - Apr 30, 2017
Software / Publishing , Collaboration and Organization
- PECE - The Platform for Experimental and Collaborative Ethnography. This project provides an online platform for academic collaboration that helps keep track of complex attribution of credit. It is geared toward anthropologists but is expanding to become more broad.
Apr 17 - Apr 23, 2017
Software / Publishing , Collaboration and Organization
- LibraryThing - an online platform for organizing your library.
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
- From the March for Science to an Abolitionist Science - An article that offers several historical and current critiques of science that propose alternative ways of doing scientific work.
Feb 27 - Mar 05, 2017
Art and Science Spaces / Other
- Center for Science and the Imagination - A collaboration between artists and scientists at Arizona State University.
- STEM to STEAM - An initiative out of Rhode Island School of Design to bring more art and design into STEM education.
Feb 20 - Feb 26, 2017
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- Ministat - A DIY chemostat.
Art and Science Spaces / Other
- Interspecifics - A Mexico City-based collective working on projects at the intersection of art and science, especially related to biologically-generated sound.
Funding and Support / Other Types of Support
- DIYbio.org - An online community for DIY biologists.
- SciStarter - A search engine for finding citizen science projects to participate in.
- Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit - Maintained by the US government.
Conferences and Events / Other Types of Support
- Biodesign Challenge - Student design competition that concentrates on envisioning the future application of biotechnology.
Jan 09 - Jan 15, 2017
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- Paperfuge - An ultra-low cost, hand-powered centrifuge inspired by the mechanics of a whirligig toy.
Dec 12 - Dec 18, 2016
Software / Lab Equipment Software
- Grafana - Create a dashboard (online if you wish) that visualizes your experimental data.
- mMass - Open-source software for mass spectrometers.
- Stellarium - Open-source planetarium software.
Software / Publishing , Collaboration and Organization
- Zotero - Open-source citation management software.
- TiddlyWiki - Easily create your own wikis to organize information.
- Evergreen ILS - Software for managing a library of books (and the loaning process).
- ISLE (⭐215) - Open-source laboratory equipment inventory management system developed by NASA.
- GanttProject - Productivity tool for scheduling tasks and making Gantt charts.
- Open Science Framework - Open-source collaborative project manager for scientific research.
- Calibre - eBook management software.
Dec 05 - Dec 11, 2016
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
- Citizen Engineering: Disrupting Expertise in Classroom and Community - A paper introducing the concept of "citizen engineering" as a companion to citizen science
- Science for the People - A late 1960s/early 1970s radical science movement whose literature has been organized on a website by UMass Amherst.
Art and Science Spaces / Other
- Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts - A bioart studio-lab at SUNY Buffalo.
- MIT Media Lab - An interdisciplinary art, science and technology research center that is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nov 28 - Dec 04, 2016
Other Resources / Other Types of Support
- The Powercube - Some literature and workshops by community organizers for understanding power and mobilizing.
Nov 14 - Nov 20, 2016
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
- The Science Wars and the Future of the American Academic Profession - Caltech chemistry professor Jay A. Labinger's paper about the need for scientists to engage with critical science studies scholars.
Oct 31 - Nov 06, 2016
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- BioSurplus - A supplier of used bio lab equipment.
Funding and Support / Financial Resources
- Herb Society of America - Offers some grants that are compatible with small, non-institutional research projects.
- Seeding Labs - Equipment and funding for labs in developing countries.
- EPA Environmental Education Grants - Grants available for small community organizations.
Funding and Support / Other Types of Support
- CollabFinder - A place to find collaborators for your project.
- OpenLab-Blueprint - Informational resources for upstart DIY science labs, put together by members of Genspace.
Other Resources / Other Types of Support
- Biocanvas - A collection of biological images as art.
Sep 26 - Oct 02, 2016
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- Bento Box - A low-cost PCR workstation from Bento Lab.
- IORodeo - Sells a cheap open-source potentiostat, a colorimeter, and some other equipment.
Tools and Equipment / Environmental Science and Geology
- Smoky Mountain Scientific - Modular, Low cost, open-source instrumentation for environmental monitoring.
Tools and Equipment / 3D Printing and Fabrication
- Thingiverse - A search engine for 3D-printable models.
- Ember - A comprehensively open-source DLP SLA 3D Printer project, powered by Autodesk.
- Precious Plastic - Make your own 3D printer filament.
Tools and Equipment / Electronics
- C.H.I.P - A $9 Linux computer.
- Raspberry Pi Zero - The cheapest, smallest Raspberry Pi ($5).
- Particle Electron - Raspberry Pi-like microcontroller for connecting the devices you make to the cellular network.
- SparkFun - A company selling all sorts of electronics for DIY projects, including sensors.
- Red Pitaya - Open-source tool with multiple signal processing functions, such as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, signal generator, and more.
- Podo - A stickable, hi-resolution Bluetooth camera.
Tools and Equipment / Other
- Global Village Construction Set - Open-source farm equipment and other civilization-building tools.
- Farming Concrete Data Collection Toolkit - "Methods for measuring the outcomes and impacts of community gardens and urban farms."
- Build My Lab Contest - A competition to create instructables for DIY lab equipment.
- Generic Lab Equipment - Wiki with instructions on building DIY lab equipment.
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
Sep 19 - Sep 25, 2016
Literature / Citizen Science Theory
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Genetics/Biohacking
- SynthTechBio Network - Latin American biohackers' network.
- Four Thieves Vinegar Collective - A group working on DIY pharma-hacking projects, such as a $30 alternative to $600 epi-pens.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Environment
- The Community Science Initiative - A nonprofit water testing and environmental data organization in Ithaca, NY.
- Rainforest Connection - Project sing old smartphones as sensors to combat illegal logging.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Other
- The Citizen Science Lab - A community science lab based in Pittsburgh, PA.
- BioBus - A mobile science education lab.
Sep 05 - Sep 11, 2016
Educational / Graphs and Visualization
- OpenWetWare - A site that maintains a list of bio lab protocols as well as an electronic lab notebook for team use.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Other
- Farm Hack - A project for producing open farm tools.
Aug 29 - Sep 04, 2016
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- SGD - Stanford University's Saccharomyces Genome Database.
Funding and Support / Financial Resources
- Endeavorist - A "curiosity network" for science and technology that combines a social network with crowdfunding.
Other Resources / Other Types of Support
- The Open Source Hardware Association - A resource for all things open hardware, including designs and legal considerations.
Aug 22 - Aug 28, 2016
Software / Modeling and Computation
- OpenSCAD - 3D modeling software.
- SageMath - Open-source cloud-based computation (similar to MATLAB and Mathematica).
- GNU Octave - Free software numerical computation program, similar to MATLAB.
- Dia - Open-source software for making diagrams.
- Gephi - Open graph visualization platform.
- QGIS - Open GIS software.
- Mineways - a tool for turning Minecraft model files into 3D-printable .stl files
Educational / Graphs and Visualization
- Light and Matter - Benjamin Crowell's free-to-download, cheap-to-buy open source physics textbooks.
- OpenStax - Repository of open-licensed and collaboratively-edited textbooks on many basic subjects. You can download them as ebooks or order print copies.
- PhET Simulations - CU Boulder interactive physics and chemistry simulations.
- United Diversity Co-op Library - A vast library of interesting textbooks and other resources in PDF form on such topics as permaculture, agriculture, economics, crafts and activism.
- Microbe Wiki - A large student-edited multi-institutional wiki for microbiology.
- OpenCulture Textbooks - The textbook section of a website dedicated to the open sharing of information.
- Free Tech Books - Free ebooks (mostly computer science and engineering).
Tools and Equipment / Biology and Chemistry
- The ODIN - A distributor of affordable DIY biology equipment.
- OpenTrons - An open-source liquid-handling robot.
- OpenPCR - An open-source PCR thermocycler.
- BLAST - Search tool for local alignment.
Tools and Equipment / Environmental Science and Geology
- Raspberry Shake - A seismograph compatible with the Raspberry Pi.
Tools and Equipment / 3D Printing and Fabrication
- 3D Printable Science Equipment - A list of different 3d-printable science objects with models.
Publishing and Doing Research / Other
- Public Library of Science (PLOS) - Nonprofit organization that publishes open-access journals and also advocates for openness and tranparency in science.
- arXiv - A Cornell-supported site for sharing and discussing early drafts of scientific papers (mostly physics and math).
- Directory of Open Access Journals - Over 9000 journals listed.
- Investigative Dashboard - A tool for researchers, especially journalists, to share documents and findings.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Genetics/Biohacking
- HiveBio - Seattle community bio lab.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Environment
- Sanctuary for Weedy Species - A Brooklyn-based urban ecology project.
- Coweeta Listening Project - Southern Appalachian project combining ecological research with civic action.
- The Radix Center - Community-based urban sustainability / agriculture education center in Albany, NY.
- The Bucket Brigade - A Norco, LA - based citizen science group fighting for environmental justice.
- Safecast - An online citizen science project collecting and visualizing radioactivity data across the globe.
Funding and Support / Financial Resources
- Experiment.com - A science crowdfunding platform.
- The Awesome Foundation - A nonprofit that funds awesome projects with microgrants $1000 at a time.
Funding and Support / Other Types of Support
- Public Lab - A DIY environmental science network.
Conferences and Events / Other Types of Support
- iGEM - Student synthetic biology competition with connections to many DIY bio labs.
Other Resources / Other Types of Support
- MOST - The Pearce Research Group at Michigan Tech in Open Sustainability Technology.
- OSGeo - The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, which offers a lot of open tools for working with GIS data.
- Open source engineering software - A large list maintained on Appropedia.
How do I contribute to this list? / Other Types of Support
- Familiar with GitHub? Send a pull request with your suggestions. Please also see the contribution guidelines (⭐248).
- Not familiar with GitHub? You can leave a comment on this page by clicking on the
Issuestab on the right and adding a New Issue (that's just like a comment). You'll need to create a GitHub account first.
Aug 08 - Aug 14, 2016
Conferences and Events / Other Types of Support
- Biofabricate - A design-focused annual conference that focuses on biotechnology-affiliated design, materials, and techniques.
Questions and Knowledge Gaps / Other Types of Support
- Ethics in research are often overseen by federal agencies or institutional review boards (IRBs). Is there a bottom-up, citizen-driven alternative to this?
Aug 01 - Aug 07, 2016
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Genetics/Biohacking
- BioCurious - The first biohacking space in the world, located in Sunnyvale, CA
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Other
- Hillsboro Library of Things - A library for physical objects based in Hillsboro, OR. Includes some science and tech supplies.
- Fab Foundation - an organization that facilitaties a network of digital fabrication "Fab Labs"
Conferences and Events / Other Types of Support
- Innovative Citizen - An annual citizen science festival in the Ruhr area, Germany, with an emphasis on organic fabrication, bio-hacking, mobile agriculture, and sustainability in urban ecosystems.
Jul 25 - Jul 31, 2016
Publishing and Doing Research / Other
- Citizen Science: Theory and Practice - An open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to discussion about methods in citizen science.
- Scholar Subreddit - A great place to request help getting access to scientific papers that are beyond paywalls.
Citizen Science Spaces and Projects / Genetics/Biohacking
- Genspace - One of the oldest and most successful DIY Bio labs, located in Brooklyn, NYC.