Jellyfish and People: A Citizen-Science Collaboration With Mutual Benefits to Citizens and Scientists

• In Event: 30.034 - The Ecology of Citizen Science: An Opportunity for Learning

Abstract

Objectives
Research of jellyfish populations provides insight into the marine ecosystem, knowledge about swarming behavior and helps inform the public about possible coastal outbreaks. Given the public’s stakes in this matter, recruiting citizens as research contributors seems only natural. Over the last five years an Israeli CS project (meduzot.co.il) has been gathering the public’s reports of jellyfish observations.
This poster explores the capacity of this project to contribute to both scientists and citizens. We analyze the project’s current state and challenges, and suggest a unique model that addresses issues highlighted in our findings.

Perspectives
Collaboration between scientists and citizens may prove difficult (Mueller, Tippins & Bryan, 2012), especially as their interests and goals may be inconveniently aligned (Zoellick, Nelson & Schauffler, 2012). Louv & Fitzpatrick (2012) describe the tension between different objectives of a CS project as a tradeoff - allocating more weight to one objective (e.g., scientific value) necessarily reduces the weight given to others (e.g., educational value). We intend to tackle this issue in our project design (see below).

Approach and data sources
Characterization of current public participation was performed by a quantitative analysis of ~3700 reports to the CS website between 2012-2015.
Examination of the way jellyfish-related issues are presented by the media was performed using a qualitative analysis of recent articles (1/6-17/7) published in five leading Israeli news sites. Articles were categorized by the extent to which they promote understanding of jellyfish-related ecology, as: (A) Providing scientifically-solid, useful ecological information, (B) Partially providing such information, (C) Having no socio-scientific value.

Results
We found that reporting is not consistent over time; reports increase during the late spring/summer (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Distribution of reports over seasons

Media coverage of jellyfish lacks educational value; only 3 out of 16 examined articles contained any useful socio-scientific information (Figure 5) and most simply covered jellyfish outbreaks.


Figure 5: Classification of jellyfish-related articles appearing in online news sites

Significance
We identified a need to improve data collection by the public, i.e. not only when people go to the beach but year-round since jellyfish are present all-year long.
Media coverage analysis demonstrates a bias towards a simplistic, one-dimensional perspective. An alternative communication channel can help provide useful ecological knowledge to the public.
Our improved CS design will introduce middle-school students who will gain proficiency in advanced tasks such as quality assurance and data analysis. As they become familiar with jellyfish and associated issues, they will mediate between scientists and the public, communicating scientifically-solid information and improving public engagement. Based on Ballard, Dixon & Harris (2016), ownership of rigorous data collection and analysis; communicating findings to other audiences; and interacting with complex socio-ecological systems promotes students’ civic scientific literacy (Shen, 1975) and environmental stewardship.
This model targets multiple goals - improve data collection, provide better information to the public, and enhance students’ civic scientific literacy and environmental stewardship.

Authors

• Osnat Atias, University of Haifa

• Ornit Sagy, University of Haifa

• Yael Kali, University of Haifa

• Dror Angel, University of Haifa

• Dor Edelist