Don’t you just get the idea sometimes that you just can’t find any chanterelles wherever you look and all you want to do is give up in pure frustration?
Well, I guess the world of researchers isn’t too far flung after all – what can happen is that some data is way too difficult to find by yourself (because it’s too expensive, time-consuming, too difficult to collect…), which is where you can come in!
It’s easier working together!
A lot of research is actually dependent upon voluntary effort in order to find or treat enough data – whether this may be counting penguins in a picture, analyzing the development of tropical storms or even looking for anomalies in data returning from the Kepler spacecraft in order to look for new planets! (All of which I have been a part of – counting penguins was the most fun!)
If that sounds like something you’d like to try, you can help some researchers through a citizen science web portal called the Zooniverse! Who knows, you might even learn something – and all you have to do is have fun!
