Are you a PhD student or early to mid-career freshwater scientist with an interest in citizen science? If so, we would love to invite you to join the Earthwatch research hackathon from May 25th to May 27th at Oxford Brookes University. This is a BES Citizen Science SIG supported event; see here for more information.
The research hackathon (two nights accommodation and food provided) will bring together 25 participants (researchers and practitioners) to focus on a global citizen science dataset. Freshwater Watch is a citizen science generated dataset currently comprised of 17,000+ data from over 35 cities. In each city, participants test water quality in rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and wetlands as well as making qualitative observations of point and diffuse pollutions sources, bankside and instream vegetation complexity, flows and levels. The research hackathon is a great opportunity to get hands on with an unprecedented, collaborative citizen science dataset and should appeal to anyone who is considering volunteer participation as a part of their research activities. During the hackathon participants will work in small teams to explore a research avenue and couple the FreshWater Watch dataset with other accessible datasets (e.g. remote-sensed data, biodiversity, demographics).
Research hackathons (or Derbies) regularly result in publishable research or network expansion. In addition, FreshWater Watch is frequently being used to compliment regulatory monitoring and the hackathon is likely to shed new light on how this emerging tool can be better employed.
The objectives of the hackathon are to:
- Highlight the opportunities and challenges to freshwater ecology and citizen science
- Carry out a preliminary analysis using citizen science data that could lead to a peer-reviewed publication
- Provide a networking opportunity for early to mid-career freshwater ecologists and practitioners