myScience—Engaging the public in U.S. Geological Survey science

Abstract

myScience ( http://txpub.usgs.gov/myscience/ ) is a Web application developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Texas Water Science Center through a partnership with the USGS Community for Data Integration to address the need for increasing public awareness and participation in existing USGS citizen science projects. The myScience application contains data for 20 projects available for public participation representing all USGS mission areas. A visitor to the USGS education Web site ( http://education.usgs.gov/ ) can click on the Citizen Science link to search for citizen science projects by topic or location, select a project of interest, and click “Get Involved.” Within the USGS, an internal version of myScience serves to build a community of practice and knowledge sharing among scientists who lead or would like to lead a crowdsourcing project.