Citizen Science Project

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...

Project design: Once an unusual, man made, or natural sound is identified, the participant is instructed to make an entry on  a community spreadsheet and send an email to an inbox maintained by the researchers. From there, the data is aggregated and used to study when the southern resident orcas and other species are active in the Salish Sea. researchers can then make recommendations to policy makers about noise pollution levels and activity levels of the aquatic wildlife.  Reviewing data could be made easier by creating some sort of tool or app that allows the listener to flag the exact time within the audio recording that they heard the sound. The way that the project is set up now, participants can only describe what they heard and only through running a separate software program can they provide an audio clip of what they heard. This limits the quality of data being collected. I think the partnerships that OrcaSound have forged in order to maintain the hydrophones are ...

Your blog posts will have multiple components over the course of the semester: O rcaSound Citizen Science Project: This project exists to monitor the habitat of the endangered Northwest Pacific orca by detecting and identifying the sounds of orcas and any dangerous noises. OrcaSound primarily uses computer software to distinguish natural from anthropogenic sounds; however, Human ears can do a better job of detecting unusual or new sounds. Therefore OrcaSound maintains live audio feed from its 5 hydrophones and also publishes recordings or various sounds and distinct orca calls.  OrcaSound is run by a broad coalition of organizations including Beam Reach, Colorado College Physics and Environmental Science Dept, The Orca Network, Port Townsend Marine Science Center, the Orca Behavior Institute, Cetacean Research Technology, and many others. Primarily, OrcaSound is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  The citizen scientists are primarily ...