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Updated May 8 1:17pm
Citizen Science
Citizen science refers to multiple ways that non-scientists engage with scientific research efforts. The NC State University Libraries supports campus citizen science and shares its values of openness, access, and community engagement and participation. If you have a question or suggestion, contact our Lead Librarian for Public Science, Karen Ciccone.
Citizen Science Campus
NC State undergraduate students will encounter citizen science opportunities in many aspects of campus life. Learn about our Citizen Science Campus.
Citizen Science Club
Citizen Science Club at NC State consists of undergraduate NC State students advocating for scientific research as an interdisciplinary endeavor. We welcome students in any major to become involved in spreading science throughout campus and to the surrounding community, and in promoting diversity in science. The club works closely with researchers on campus as well as in the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.
Find a project
SciStarter is a place to find, join, and contribute to science through more than 1600 formal and informal research projects and events.
Borrow equipment
The library lend science equipment, including camera traps, binoculars, microscopes, light meters, etc.
Pack Science Challenge
Through challenges to participate in campus-based studies led by NC State investigators, the Pack Science Challenge engages students as collaborators in ongoing research about their environment.
NC State and partner citizen science projects:
City Bird
Every year, millions of birds are killed when they fly into windows. We created City Bird to bring awareness of this important issue to our community and to create a citizen science project that will monitor bird-window collisions in the triangle area of NC.
Crowd the Tap
Crowd the Tap is a public science project focused on identifying and addressing lead contamination in household drinking water.
Got Guts?
The shape, or morphology, of the gut makes a huge difference in what an animal can eat and digest. But gut diagrams are only available for a handful of species – and we have no idea how much one individual varies from another. By taking pictures of the guts of each animal you harvest, you can help us map the unknown guts of wildlife.
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Current Projects
Castaway, Monkey Health Explorer, Natural North Carolina, and others.
Public Science Lab
The scientists, communicators, and volunteers in his lab aim to tell the stories of the small species–whether on our bodies, under our beds or in our backyards–humans interact with every day but tend to ignore. The ecology and evolution of these species in our private places has barely begun to be explored.
Rocky Branch Greenway Beaver Dam
We are studying beavers in urban streams around the greater Raleigh area. We are interested in the physical and biological changes in urban streams following the establishment of beaver dams. Visit this Chronolog site and contribute your photographic observations of how this reach of Rocky Branch changes after rain events and with the seasons.
Sentinels of the Sounds
Sentinels of the Sounds seeks to collect photos, locations, and basic information about cypress trees along the shores of our Sounds and rivers in North Carolina. Our goal is to begin to connect the dots to better understand how our shores are changing. If you are out in the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound or some of the major rivers fishing, bird watching, or simply enjoying nature and you see these beautiful trees, snap a picture of them and send it to us.
Sound Around Town
Sound Around Town is an investigation about human perceptions of the outdoor acoustic environment and how soundscapes influence quality of life.
A Tree's Life
This program is a citizen science study of backyard tree growth in response to global climate change. Your trees can tell us a lot about forests of the future.
Triangle Bird Count
The Triangle Bird Count (TriBC) is a citizen science project to help monitor the abundance and diversity of bird species in urban habitats modeled after several other Urban Bird Counts already being conducted in North America. This is an annual count of April 15th to May 31st since 2019.
Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Program Leadership in Public Science Cluster
The NCSU Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Program Leadership in Public Science cluster focuses on citizen science and science communication. They conduct research that directly engages the public, particularly those in underserved communities, in citizen science research. They also study the impact of public participation in science, particularly in informal educational settings.