Participation journal: The training for this project was minimal yet fun and engaging. The participant is instructed to listen to several audio clips of different sounds that occur in the Salish Sea. Many of the sounds are anthopogenic like noises from speed boats, fishing vesicles, military SONAR, aircraft, and construction. But there are also a lot of natural sounds made by the inhabitants of the Salish sea like the harbor seal, sea gulls, gray whales, humpback whales, orcas, harbor porpoise, and California sea lions just to name a few. The participant is instructed to listen to all the different kinds of sound they might here and is then told to report any suspected identifications of orca sound to the researchers. I began listening to the natural sounds first because that is what I was most interested in hearing. Natural sounds we somewhat quieter and subtler than what I thought they would be so I turn the volume up on my headphones to get a better listen. I then switched to list
Public outreach: My overall experience with this project is positive. It only took a quick google search and then some playing around with search filters to find an interesting citizen science project. I'm not exactly sure if this project is actively advertised but it is easily searchable. One thing that I would change about the project is making sure the audio training files are offered in several formats so everyone can participate regardless of their computer software specifications. Also, making the training mandatory would increase the barrier of entry but would also make sure participants aren't misinterpreting sounds. I think the educational aspect of this project is the strongest piece of it. Computer software can mostly do a better job at picking up natural sounds than humans can so long as the sounds are similar to ones recorded before. Combine that with the fact that you don't really have to pay a computer program and humans quickly become obsolete. However, t