e national biodiversity database.
Start recording the organisms in your own area and on your travels, and join thousands of other people in building Australia’s biodiversity knowledge. Get yourself on the Citizen Science Leader Board by recording as many different species as you can.
Perhaps you are interested in a particular species or group of species. Why not join an existing project or create your own project.
There are several ways for you to participate in citizen science:
- Add your sightings of plants or animals directly into the Atlas of Living Australia
- Contribute your sightings to one of the many citizen science projects currently happening in different areas of Australia. These range from species specific projects (eg. Koala counts, frogwatch, etc.) to regional or national multi-species themed projects (eg. FeralScan, ACT and Southern Tablelands Weedspotter, Waterwatch, etc.), or regional atlases (eg. the Atlas of Life in the Coastal Wilderness).
- If you have skills in identifying organisms, why not join BowerBird and help other people identify their sightings.
- Join the fun and interesting projects in DigiVol which are using crowdsourcing to digitise all sorts of resources into data which can be searched and analysed to improve our knowledge of biodiversity and the natural world.
- Get involved in the Australian Citizen Science Association or a group which is already running citizen science projects, such as one of the ALA affiliates.
Download the new Australian BioBlitz Guidelines developed by members of the Australian Citizen Science Association.
Visit the Australian BioBlitz Hub
Tips & Tricks
It can often be difficult to accurately identify a sighting out in the field and identifying organisms to species level can be challenging even for experts in some groups of organisms. Below are some tips and tricks to help even the most seasoned Citizen Scientist improve their contributions.
Improve your nature photography
Including good quality photos with your sighting record is important to support both the quality of your record and the correct identification if you need to seek help in identifying the specimen. Nature photography can also be fun and rewarding in itself. A quick search on the internet will provide lots of fantastic resources to help improve your photographic skills.
Take great photos of small things
Many organisms are very small and correct identification may require really good close-up (macro) photos, sometimes from several angles. For insects, sharp photos of heads, mouth parts and reproductive organs are also important.
A search on the internet such as this will find several helpful tips on taking sharp macro natural photos.
Try to identify it yourself
Affiliates of Citizen Science
The Australian Museum is home to the Australian Museum Centre for Citizen Science and has had a long history in citizen science projects. The museum currently manages, with collaborators, some of Australia’s most well known and best loved citizen science projects such as Bushblitz, Bioblitz and Streamwatch. The Museum also partners with the Atlas in the creation and management of the hugely successful Digivol digital volunteering program; where volunteers from all over the globe can delve into the Australian Museum collection transcribing the data, so it is discoverable online for anyone to access anywhere in the world.
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Museum of Victoria
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The Discovery Circle
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Australian Citizen Science Association
Be a part of The national citizen science adovcacy and community discussion forum.