Learning More About Earthworms With Citizen Science

Abstract

Have you ever wanted to conduct scientific research? Citizen, or community science involves non-scientists in assisting scientists with research. The term covers a huge variety of projects: from online-only where you can classify galaxies, to practical outdoor activities, and even helping with scientific expeditions. Ideally, citizen science benefits everyone—scientists collect more data, and over larger geographic areas than they could on their own. Non-scientists benefit by learning something new and experiencing how science works, and hopefully having fun! The small size of most soil organisms is challenging for citizen science. However, earthworms are easy to recognize and relatively large, so there have been several citizen science projects focused on them. In this article, we discuss earthworm citizen science from its origins with 18th and 19th century natural historians, to the modern day. Discover what non-scientists have contributed to earthworm science and how you can design your own earthworm investigations.