Scaling Up Cost-Effective Community Engagement in Coastal Resource Management

Citizen science offers unique opportunities to build public engagement, community capacity, and relevance for science, while addressing major environmental and resource issues in timely, cost-efficient fashion. Effective programs enhance science learning, long-term public involvement, and the knowledge needed to collect accurate data. This project will gauge the essential elements of a rigorous, successful coastal citizen science program quantitatively and qualitatively, using individual demographics, organizational, community, and regional predictors, and focus group evaluations. Its focus will be COASST, a coastal observation and seabird survey team that operates along the West Coast and into Alaska.