Extended answers from Yingchuan Yang (YY), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 4: Global Perspectives

Question: Do you have a sense of who the readership for the magazine was? Did it create a community of amateur scientists that might not have other outlets?
YY: The readership was primarily the urban youth. It is hard to calculate the number of readers because books and magazines were widely shared to read in socialist China, but a few millions would be a safe estimation. As for the second question, precisely, even though not exactly "scientists" as they did not work in universities or research institutes, but many of the readers went on to become amateur technologists with expertise that was otherwise hard to acquire.

Question: Are there feedback loops for readers to, in turn, share their knowledge?
YY: Yes, the readers were encouraged to share their knowledge to the Radio journal, and some readers would further respond to those submissions from readers.

Question: How many participated in the Radio magazine projects? How did that vary across time? Is it still active in this age of computers? Are there now similar publications related to digital computing?
YY: For the first question see above. The readership has been declining since the postsocialist period because, first, more mediums of knowledge became available and, second, radio was replaced by more advanced forms of telecommunications. The journal still exists today, but it has become a niche publication targeting a very professional readership. There are similar publications on digital computing, especially popular in the 1990s and 2000s. Now, everything is online.

Question: What about citizen science as a strategy to support diversity and site specific / embodied knowledges as opposed to hegemonic and nationalistic directives?
YY: My work is particularly indicative of the possibility to understand citizen science as a site of knowledge production that is against hegemonic and nationalistic directives. By doing that, it also compels us to rethink what "citizen" can mean.
 

Extended answers from Maxime Polleri (MP), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 5: The Pitfalls of Citizen Science

Question: Does your argument suggest that more non-government scientists need to position themselves between citizen scientists and the government?
MP: The concept of “conflictual collaboration” describes how initial practices of resistance by non-state actors can evolve in collaboration with official politics of state governance. In this, I argue that civic resources used to resist and reinterpret official narratives of contamination end up reinforcing a state-sponsored normalization of the disaster. Meanwhile, they become crucial techniques of neoliberal governance designed to govern the conduct of populations amid contaminated environments. 
    That being said, I believed that there is potential for fruitful collaborations between state and non-state actors as citizen scientists or non-government scientists merge their local knowledge with the state’s resources. This, however, raises a set of complicated ethical questions: Who gets to teach about radiation risks and what is their actual expertise? To what degree does citizens’ participation put them at risk of adverse health effects? What are the rights of those who refuse to be part of such projects? And how can they collaborate with the state without reinforcing neoliberal models of governance that burden citizens with the responsibilities of environmental protection?

Question: How much do national cultures exacerbate (or limit) some of the neoliberal tropes you lays out?
MP: My work examines how the growing impact of citizen science in post-Fukushima Japan echoes a neoliberal shift in the management of contamination, leading to reduced public expenditure, minimal government intervention, and risk privatization – meaning that risk becomes a matter of personal business rather than the state’s responsibility.
    In that regard, how national cultures exacerbate (or limit) some of the neoliberal tropes in post-Fukushima Japan is very interesting. Neoliberalism has often been associated with market-oriented reforms that attempt to reduce state influence on the economy (think of the “Reaganomics” in the U.S. around the 1980s for example). Increasingly, academics are moving beyond the language of economy to criticize neoliberalism as an ideology that permeates the social sphere and promotes tropes of individual accountability, self-responsibility, empowerment, and risk management. In this context, practices of citizen science, like monitoring and tracking, can be seen as a mean through which a self-responsible citizen becomes an “entrepreneur of himself” to use the words of French philosopher Michel Foucault. In Japan, neoliberal restructuring came after the economic crisis of the 90s, which followed the Japanese asset price bubble. In the 2000s, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began to heavily emphasized a discourse imbued in a neoliberal language, pointing toward the individual responsibility of Japanese citizens. As the anthropologist Anne Allison explains in that regard: “Under its new banner of ‘risk and individual responsibility,’ the government asked its citizens to remake their subjectivity and become strong and independent individuals ‘capable of bearing the heavy weight of freedom’” (2015: 41). This was very much a novel discourse. It went against the traditional national model that had long emphasized group harmony and collectivism as ideal cultural values, according to which a good citizen was expected to stick with its group in times of hardship, to remain attached to its native village, to uphold the kinship obligations of its household, or not to criticize its government. As such, both ideologies have created a very paradoxical form of citizen science in Japan. On the one hand, citizens are increasingly encouraged to be self-responsible in the management of radiation risks. On the other hand, they are also condemned when they used the results of their work to criticize the governance of the disaster or to claim residual contamination. For instance, mothers that have used citizen science to show contamination after Fukushima were sometimes labeled as traitors or unpatriotic individuals by members of the state or the community. This is the irony of merging neoliberal ideology with long-held tropes of collectivism. They both promotes citizens’ initiatives, while condemning them at the same time. 

Question: I found the ways you showed that citizen science could be co-opted by the state and serve its priorities fascinating. Is there something specific about radiation risk that makes the citizen science around it more easily manipulated by the state? (eg - that it is ‘invisible’ and requires technologies to ‘see’ it).
MP: Currently, one of the government’s top priorities is the reconstruction and revitalization of Fukushima, often via a socioeconomic lens. I believe that breaking-up what we mean by “citizen” and “science” in post-Fukushima citizen science reveals how co-optation by the state happens. 
    First, the arrays of citizens involved in the tracking and monitoring of radioactive contamination make the category of citizen scientists hard to pin down in its essence. There are many kinds of citizens in citizen science. The category of citizen scientist is far from homogenous, especially in terms of gender, age, occupation, and political positions. These factors strongly influenced why people entered citizen science, how science around radiation dangers was mobilized, as well as how data about radiation risks ended up being interpreted differently (safe vs. dangerous). In this, some citizens can hold a vision of revitalization similar to the state’s priorities, excluding other social perspectives on recovery. For instance, some farmers are more concerned by the revitalization of the rural economy, rather than with the potential effects of chronic low-dose exposure to radiation. Furthermore, many citizens love their region, even in the aftermath of a disaster. Consequently, some have used citizen science to revitalize their area. This is a position that is similar to the government’s priority and often tolerated, encouraged, or co-opted. 
    Secondly, what is meant by the “science” of citizen science after Fukushima is mostly the mobilization of scientific technologies that already existed, often for the purpose of a simple tracking and monitoring agenda. In other words, citizen science used technologies to palliate gaps in government measuring (which is noteworthy and useful), but they have not created alternative scientific framework to radiation science. Co-optation happens when governments or corporate lobbies see values in how citizen scientists saved them time, money, means, while providing free labors (especially when citizens pay for their own monitoring or produce data that is open and available to all). In this, they can potentially exploit citizen science, delegating the monitoring of contamination to the victims of a disaster. For instance, when I was doing my fieldwork, the Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Agency had planned to remove 80 percent of radiation monitoring posts in Fukushima, arguing that the radiation levels in many areas had stabilized themselves—owing in part to the presence and efficiency of monitoring networks provided by citizens. This decision was controversial, since problems of radioactive contamination persist. Fully retiring these posts will force citizen scientists to take on the burden of monitoring, shifting liability for ensuring safe living conditions onto the shoulders of the nuclear victims. Lastly, an important part of the science of radiation risks was embedded in a culture of secrecy, denial, and propaganda that was shaped by the nuclear arms race of the Cold War and created ongoing controversies. Considerations over international security and political stability were often prioritized over the safety of workers or citizens who had been exposed to radiation. This legacy can be carried on by some citizens who unwittingly replicate these propagandist forms of knowledge. 

Question: Your account of citizen scientists and governmental and corporate entities appears to be formed largely from the perspective of citizens -- citizen scientists or not -- but not that of the governmental or corporate actors. Taking the other perspective, could one describe the post-contamination regime in Fukushima as one of co-optation, rather than "conflictual collaboration"?
MP: The concept of “conflictual collaboration” was used to describe how issues of resistance and collaboration are not always necessarily opposed; they can also happen at the same time. In other words, practices of resistance should not be theorized as de facto opposing governmental tactics or other forms of dominance. Some aspects of citizen science can intersect with governmental tactics at specific levels (e.g., promoting repatriation to Fukushima), while other parts can be highly critical of the state governance of contamination (e.g., lack of data, openness, or transparency). That being said, co-optation is definitely a part of the concept of conflictual collaboration, in that some elements and practices of citizen science are being appropriated by the state or corporate entities for different purposes than what initially intended by citizen science. However, co-optation is not always happening against the will of citizen scientists in a kind of disciplinary way. Broader factors, like similar visions of what counts as post-disaster “recovery,” also enable collaboration with the state or corporate lobbies. 
    It is interesting to see that initially the rise of citizen science was highly criticized by the state. After Fukushima, many citizen scientists legitimized different views about the official assessment of the radioactive contamination. Their scientific practices of monitoring made the materiality of radioactive contamination perceptible beyond governmental narratives and maps, revealing unexpected residual contamination and highlighting the limits of state expertise. The state perceived this as an attack on its authority and often attempted to repress their movements. For instance, it tried to highlight technical shortcomings of citizen science centers. In her book “Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists,” (2016) sociologist Aya Kimura demonstrated that mothers implicated in citizen science were seen as impediments to the social and economic recovery of Fukushima, both by the state and by a part of the population. Because their work discovered residual contamination they were seen as going against the revitalization efforts and accused of spreading harmful rumors. The emergence of non-state actors in radiological protection was initially met with disregard and difficulties.
    Now, more than 10 years after the disaster, we see an important reversal of opinion by the state on citizen science. The works of citizen science is sometimes encouraged and promoted at the official levels. Yet, it is important to note that not all forms of citizen science are encouraged or co-opted by the state. It is helpful to break down the different types of citizen science that emerged after Fukushima to better understand why some citizen science initiatives are co-opted, while others are not.
    First, some citizen scientists have used their work to highlight the dangers of living in contaminated areas. This kind of citizen science sustains tropes of permanent evacuation, which heavily clash with an official state politics that rather attempts to repatriate evacuees to Fukushima. Without much surprised, the state did not encourage this specific form of citizen science. Moreover, many of these organizations no longer exist because of different reasons. Some citizens have been shocked by the residual radioactivity that they measured and have evacuated permanently elsewhere, other organizations cannot sustain the funding necessary to operate their activities, and many simply became tired of delving in these activities. This kind of citizen science has also failed to gain momentum at the legal level. In some instances, the Japanese court acknowledged the possibility of radiation risks to the health of citizens, but rejected their demand for official evacuation, arguing that doing so was a question of individual choice and self-responsibility.
    Secondly, there is a form of citizen science that is used to revitalize the socio-economic life of Fukushima, as well as to promote repatriation. Lastly, there are also many organizations that produced open data on contamination while leaving the interpretation of its risk open to the public. Open data on radioactive contamination can be used and interpreted by anybody, freely, and for any political purpose. Co-optation happens in the latter two cases: when the practices, narratives, and purpose of citizen science coincide with the state politics of revitalization (e.g., raising awareness about Fukushima, lowering anxiety, encouraging repatriation, promoting food sales) or when citizen science fills in the gaps of state responses by providing free work under the form of monitoring or open data (that can then be interpreted according to the state’s standards). Indeed, the scale and heterogeneity of residual contamination make it very difficult for a government of the moment to monitor and track radiation everywhere. Resorting to the work of citizen science palliates these gaps. As such, from the state viewpoint, citizen science lead to reduced public expenditure, minimal government intervention, and the privatization of risk, where risk becomes a personal matter rather than one overseen by the government. Moreover, organizations promoting nuclear power are encouraging the role of citizen science in post-disaster governance, often to better prepare for nuclear accidents. In this, citizen participation is increasingly seen as an integral part of monitoring before, during, or after a nuclear disaster. By providing supporting data, the citizen role change from that of a passive victim to an active participant. What we are seeing is an important reorganization of expertise moving toward transnational network of citizen monitoring. This is part of decentralized strategies that delegate an important part of nuclear safeguards to the citizens, while ironically being described as grassroot movements. 
    Ultimately, this direction can be theorized as a new form of neoliberal abandonment, in which the responsibility for ensuring radiological protection is shifted onto the shoulders of citizens, rather than being the burden of states or corporate polluters. Citizen science is as such co-opted when it fits a state’s vision or provide unpaid labor that can be mobilized in specific directions. 

Question: The references to Cold War secrecy in your text are puzzling to me. What is the role of the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in public and private responses to the Fukushima disaster? And have not the findings of the long-term studies of radiation exposure that followed the bombings, e.g., those overseen by the U.S. National Academy of Science, available to the public?
MP: Much of what is known about radiation adverse health effects came from the atomic bombings of Japan. These tragedies produced the opportunity to study first-hand the effects of radiation exposure on human beings. After World War II, these studies were initially pursued in secret by American authorities. Survivor data, which became known as the Life Span Study, was first collected by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), later to be succeeded by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), which still produce research on the survivors and their children. Data produced by this research is referred as the “gold standard” for radiation exposure studies. As anthropologists Goldstein and Stawkowski (2015) summarize, the Life Span Study created many safety standards that were used for public health purpose, worker safety, or environmental litigations in the growing nuclear industries of the post-war period. In particular, the study lead scientists to the conclusion that certain doses of radiation, above 100 millisieverts (mSv) per year, correlate with an increase of cancer occurrences. Above this level, radiation is linked with cancers of the blood, breast, thyroid, lung, stomach, and brain, while also impairing immunity to infection and increasing the risk of cataracts, heart disease, or stroke.  However, the Life Span Study never established a firm causal link of adverse health effects below 100 mSv per year. This does not imply that 100 mSv is a safe threshold, but that the research simply cannot provide a correlation. The science and management of risk associated with exposure below such level (often referred as low-dose) remain harsh areas of controversies and debates.
    While the Life Span Study represents one of the most ambitious scientific research available on radiation danger, it was also criticized for its methodological shortcomings, as well as for inattention to low-dose risks (below 100 mSv). First, the ABCC was founded in 1946 and the study did not include people who passed away from the effects of radiation. Physician and epidemiologist Alice Stewart claimed that this omission led to an unrepresentative study population, producing a cohort of “healthy” survivors.  Secondly, the study focused on external exposure by radiation rays due to waves of gamma and neutron radiation. After an atomic explosion, individuals are exposed to short-term and high external doses of radiation. Some contend that the study is insufficient to understand the risks associated with different radioactive particles released during a nuclear fallout or after a nuclear power plant accident. As historian Susan Lindee (1994) summarizes, the Life Span Study never included the estimates of inhaled or ingested radioactive particles in their calculations, nor did it include estimates of the exposure to residual radiation for citizens who had returned in the area after the bombings. In Hiroshima, radioactive fallout got mixed with pyrocumulus clouds, producing the infamous “black rain,” which later felt on people. Third, the actual study of external dose of exposure was dependent on a process of dose reconstruction, rather than factual measurement. For example, the dosage estimates produced by the Life Span Study were based on the approximate positions of the survivors, who were sometimes asked to remember their initial location many years after the bombing. 
    Additionally, the nuclear arm race of the Cold War heavily influenced the acceptable boundaries of radiation hazards. It did so by often promoting the interests of national security and nuclear warfare over the well-being of communities living in the pathway of radioactive contamination or nuclear fallout. By now, the effects of radioactive contamination faced by First Nations, Marshallese descents, and Downwinders are increasingly being documented. Historians are also studying the generations of Soviet and American workers who were contaminated during the nuclear arms race, a time in which radiation dangers were often rebuked. For instance, historian Kate Brown describes the secrecy and control of scientific knowledge that characterized the production of plutonium during this era, as well as the dismissal of those who attempted to speak out about issues of safety. In this context, what was deemed “safe” or “dangerous” was invariably intertwined within the imperatives of war and national security. For those more interested in delving in these issues I would recommend some of the following books: Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima by Susan M. Lindee, Half-Lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War edited by Barbara Rose Johnston, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown, and The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico by Joseph Masco.

Extended answers from Susan Kattwinkel (SK), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 1: The Promise of Citizen Science

Question: Your paper is situated within the Progressive Era. But of course not all citizens were equal. We know a lot about skepticism of immigrants’ abilities, for example. Could you talk a little about elitism within the communities and scholars you are studying?

SK: Incubator baby shows participated in elitist practices of the period in some ways and were
pretty egalitarian in other ways. The spectators for the shows were anyone who went to
amusement parks, world’s fair, and local carnivals, and reports indicate that people of all
classes found them interesting. The managers were almost exclusively white men, although
some were immigrants. They came from the show business world, which was largely white at
the management level. The central element of the shows – the babies themselves – was very
egalitarian, and that’s one of the things that gives them lasting significance. Unlike most
hospitals at the time, the shows accepted any infant brought in, regardless of race or the
parents’ ability to pay for care. That wasn’t a purely altruistic gesture, of course. The shows
needed infants, and non-white infants could be exploited in advertising as an extra spectacle
for a mostly-white audience. But many infants were saved in the shows who would have
otherwise died, either from the lack of a nearby incubator and specialized care, or because they
would have been turned away from hospitals.

Extended answers from Cristina Luís (CL), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 2: Historical Perspectives

Question: There was a large Jesuit university in Coimbra. Is there any evidence they were involved in citizen science? Any evidence of the religious involvement more broadly?
CL: We have evidence of the scientific activity developed by several Jesuit priests who taught natural sciences at the Colégio de S. Fiel (a primary and secondary school). The works developed, with a great prevalence for the study of insects, are published in the journal Brotéria, which is being analysed.

Question: Considering the complications of the term “citizen science” (both in terms of citizenship and definitions of science) is there alternate language we could/should use to better describe the world of scientific inquiry before professionalization?
CL: This is and excellent question, but without a simple answer. On this subject I would advise reading: Strasser, B. J., Baudry, J., Mahr, D., Sanchez, G. and Tancoigne, E. (2019) “‘Citizen Science’? Rethinking Science and Public Participation”, Science & Technology Studies, 32(2), pp. 52-76. doi: 10.23987/sts.60425.

Question: Have you found a particularly powerful 'hook' for getting people involved in biodiversity citizen science?
CL: Unfortunately, so far, I have not found that "hook". However, usually people are more motivated because, among others, there is some knowledge gain, curiosity, contribution to science and environmental preservation, and, when using biodiverity recording applications, there is an interest in making virtual collections. Here is an example of a study on this subject: Peter, Maria & Diekötter, Tim & Höffler, Tim & Kremer, Kerstin. (2021). Biodiversity citizen science: Outcomes for the participating citizens. People and Nature. 3. 10.1002/pan3.10193. 

Question: At Smithsonian Environmental Research Center we give folks the opportunity to take more central roles as the scientists rather than as technicians. They develop questions, methods, conduct analyses, and even present work at professional conferences. Are we a throw-back to the 17th and 18th centuries?
CL: That is excellent! More than a throw-back to past centuries, I would say you are an excellent example for the present and the future in what concerns public participation in scientific research.

Question: On the top of your head, who are some of the outstanding citizen scientists of today?
CL: All those who, for example, contribute to all the projects within the Zooniverse platform. But nowadays it is hard to individualize. There are plenty of people outstandingly collaborating with scientists.

Question: In present time can the case of kids engagement in digital technology be one such example? And in same way people's engagement in advancement of knowledge in other fields?
CL: Many citizen science projects make use of digital technologies to enable participation, and many of those projects are directed to children. There are also some examples of citizen science projects that introduce gamification to increase participation of kids.

Question: How should historians incorporate your research in searching for examples of knowledge making?
CL: If searching for examples of knowledge making, historians should look, e.g., for cases where there are calls made for the contribution with data for a specific research.

Question: To what extent is the history of citizen science a history of inequality?
CL: In my view, citizen science tries to counterbalance inequality by opening science to the participation of everyone. 

Question: Why are the stories of citizen science in some countries still largely unknown?
CL: In fact, the stories of citizen science has not been explored in most countries. It is a subject largely unexplored. 

Question: What we know about past Citizen Science projects seem to depend upon the survival of archives. Did past Citizen Science projects tend to create archives, or are there types of projects that we don't know about because its archive did not survive?
CL: Absolutely. Archives are essential for any study of the past and this is also the case for the study of the history of citizen science. We will only know what existed in the past if some information has survived into the present.

Question: Can you talk more about the importance of collections for citizen science, both as it was understood historically and for aiding present-day initiatives?
CL: Museum collections are excellent repositories of information about, e.g., the network of collectors, and the information collected may be used for comparison with the present.

Question: One of the themes from yesterday was about community science (which empowers the community) as opposed to citizen science (which is individual volunteering to support science). How do you think this distinction may (or may not) apply to your subject?
CL: In the research I am conducting there are examples of both individual and community volunteering involvement. In many cases, particularly in the current cases, although there are many cases of individual involvement, generally individuals contribute with the vision of contributing to the benefit of the community.

Extended answers from Marilé Colón Robles (MCR), Dr. Russane Low (RL), and Brian Campbell (BC), panelists from a Showcase during “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science"

Question: Unfortunately we are a year into the pandemic. What has the response been to your adaptations for at-home observation?
BC: The adaptations for at-home citizen science during the pandemic has been great. We, as NASA and GLOBE have developed many hands-on activities, videos, and resources that keep the knowledge flowing. We thought that we might have a great reduction in the number of NASA GLOBE Observer citizen science observations, but that wasn't the case. We saw a lot of observations, sometimes several thousand per week come in across all 4 NASAGO protocols.
RL: I think our whole team was surprised at the increased interest in citizen science we saw as a whole. Parents and teachers conveyed interest in resources to support informal learning at home, and we stepped up by creating family guides (Clouds and Tree Height),and a  Mosquito Activity Notebook (Mosquito Habitat Mapper) for upper elementary and middle school students.  We also created resources for GLOBE Observer at home. It was rewarding to see people being generous with their time and supporting citizen science, even when many other things were going on during the pandemic-together, we can get through this :-)

Question: Even though you use volunteer labor, I expect there must be a lot of labor behind the scenes at GLOBE to make this happen. How many people are on your team?
RL: This is a great question. NASA is supporting our team work through a cooperative agreement, and funds our science and outreach teams. There is also institutional support for app development and data base management supported by NASA for the GLOBE program. These federal investments in citizen science infrastructure makes it possible to provide participation in observations and research for all. Many of us wear more than one hat, but there are 3 or 4  scientist and education outreach staff members working on each protocol team (clouds, trees, mosquitoes), not including our artist and management team. NASA has put a significant investment into Earth system citizen science.
BC:  So, we  have 20+ people on our NASA Sci Activation Team (NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative), but we have adjunct folks working with us from all corners of the GLOBE, internal and external to NASA and the GLOBE Program.

Question: Who can access the data you collect? Is it freely accessible to scientists?
RL: Anyone can access the GLOBE and NASA data, we are committed the open data paradigm. You can visualize GLOBE data through a map interface in the GLOBE Visualization System, download filtered data using the Advanced Data Access Tool (ADAT) or pull data using an API. You can access these tools here. Citizen scientists have the same access as professional full time scientists. 
MCR: Research-ready datasets are also available here. You can access cloud reports from citizen scientists matched to satellite data, observations collected during the recent solar eclipses, dust event observations, and mosquito habitat mapper data.

Question: Can you talk about "my NASA data" and data literacy cubes?
MCR: The My NASA Data website offers a variety of opportunities to explore Earth Science phenomena of the Atmosphere, Biosphere, Cryosphere, Geosphere, and Hydrosphere using uniquely NASA related content. It contains Mini Lessons with pre-generated graphs and mapped visualizations as well as Lesson Plans, Story maps, STEM career connections, and ties to The GLOBE Program. The Data Literacy Cubes are an interactive way teachers can teach students about reading maps, graphs, and datasets. There are sets aimed for different learning levels (beginners, intermediate, advanced, and English Language Learners) and each side of the cube has a question for groups of students to discover with the data. Find out more here.

Question: Brian, you had an image that mentioned an Urban Heat Island campaign. Could you speak more about this?
BC: The Urban Heat Island Effect - Surface Temperature Field Campaign is a GLOBE Campaign led by Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, GLOBE Partner and professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio. You can find more information on the campaign here. 

Question: Are there scientific breakthroughs that have come from the data you’ve been collecting over the years?
RL:  I would say that what takes my breath away scientifically would not necessarily be recognized as a breakthrough, but I know of several discoveries made by NASA citizen scientists. It takes a while for our citizen scientist data to be of sufficient scope to make discoveries, but we do have important tasks and challenges to address. For instance, there are two new invasive and potentially dangerous mosquitoes that have just been seen for the first time, one in Florida and one in Cuba. Citizen scientists are poised and ready to find and track these critters, so that they can be located and eradicated before they take hold in the ecosystem.
BC: We have not seen scientific breakthroughs per se, but we do notice that we have developed a ground-breaking way to compare NASAGO observations with space-based observation. Right now, the app allows you to take Cloud observations at the same time satellites are nearby/overhead and you receive a satellite data match with your information and the satellite information. We are working to do this, on the App, for Trees and ICESat-2, Land Cover and MODIS, and Mosquitoes and GPM.
MCR: With clouds, we have found some really surprising results. We were able to test the impact of total cloud cover on the eclipse-induced temperature depression observed during the 2017 North American Total Solar Eclipse. The data has also been used to test climate model validations of worldwide total cloud cover showing a general climate model over estimation of total cloud cover. We've also found unique ways to collect ground observations of marine haze over the Southern Ocean and to report dust storm events around the world.

Question: Do you ever work with artists, writers or musicians?
RL: The answer is yes, and I wish we had the funds to do more. The tapestry I showed in the Mosquito Habitat Mapper talk was created by a digital artist to describe the history of the yellow fever mosquito. Part of the communication of science involves engaging hearts as well as minds, and art media do an amazing job of translating science data and experiences into something we can see and feel. You can take a look of three different artists in our educational resources, and download them here.   
BC: One thing we are proud of with the Trees Around the GLOBE Student Research Campaign is that we like to focus on not just the science of trees, but also the personal and cultural aspects of trees. Also, we have developed several art-related activities on tree and land cover that are part of the Trees Family Guide.

Question: I hope there will be a follow up to this? great info!
BC: We hope so too. In the meantime, please join us for the 2021 Trees Community Challenge.
RL: Thank you! For more information go to the GLOBE Observer website, which is a gateway to all our activities.  You can also learn more about the GLOBE Mission Mosquito campaign here -check out our webinar series (all are recorded).  And if you want more follow up, contact [email protected], and I will try and find the right person for you.

Question: Great opportunity to link up with environmental and health orgs!
RL: Yes! Thank you and I agree, and if you would like to make introductions to a local community environmental or health group, I would be very excited to follow up, please use this email:  [email protected]


​​​​​​​Question: Have you experienced any challenges working globally? Earlier papers today spoke about how projects might be focused more on individual countries.
RL: Great question! We do not have many issues with working globally, because GLOBE is an international program, offered in 125 countries. There are some countries that do not agree to share data with the United States, which is why there are some countries where citizen scientists are not able to contribute data. The GLOBE Observer app is now used by individual projects in many places. The Mosquito Habitat Mapper was used in a USAID project in Brazil and Peru, and in a Department of State project in 10 countries. The GLOBE Observer team hosts regular webinars and these are attended by people around the world.  
BC: We haven’t really experienced many issues working globally, outside the variations in types of phones being used that might not display the NASAGO App in the right way and the issues with country pandemic lockdowns having an effect on potential data collection. With the phone, there are many cheaply made phones that do not have a built-in magnetometer and therefore cannot measure the angles needed for the tree height observations.

Question: Can you talk about where you work with communities as opposed to just individual citizen scientists? What are the opportunities and challenges?
RL: With respect to Mosquito Habitat Mapper, we have seen that it is more productive to partner with a trusted community organization, who can frame the importance of the work citizen scientists are doing in a local context. In Ethiopia, the problem is a new invasive species that is causing malaria. In Brazil, the local problems have focused on a different mosquito and transmission of pathogens that cause Zika and dengue. Finding a local partner who can continue to message about the importance of citizen science participation is key to long term engagement by citizen scientists. 

​​​​​​​Question: Should we eradicate the yellow fever mosquito again? Like lantern bugs?
RL: You hit the nail on the head here- both globalization as well as shifting climate zones have exacerbated the big problems we face with invasive species. When an invasive species moves into a place where its traditional predators do not live, their populations can explode and dramatically change the ecosystem balance. From an ecological perspective, I'd have no issues eradicating invasives like lantern flies and the yellow fever mosquito. However most of the means of doing so would do equal harm to our natural biota. This is a fundamental challenge and why invasive species are so insidious and damaging to our ecosystems. 
​

Extended answers from Ashley Rubin, author of The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913 (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Q: What type of Prison was the Walnut Street prison? Why was it replaced by Eastern State Prison?
A: Walnut Street began as a colonial jail, then was used to contain prisoners of war, then it was reformed while still a county jail, then it became a state prison (the third in the nation) or what I call a "proto-prison" or what was sometimes called at the time a "penitentiary house" (although parts of it, even after the reforms ended in 1794, contained a jail, a prison, and a penitentiary house, confusingly, so it was kind of a hybrid). It was replaced or really supplemented by a number of county prisons (jails) like Moyamensing and others, but the prison part of it was really replaced by Eastern and Western. These two modern prisons were initially supposed to help the overcrowding at Walnut Street, but also fix some of its design flaws, so Eastern and Western and their Pennsylvania System were really supposed to live up to the ideals that initially underlay Walnut Street but that didn't really happen in practice. Michael Meranze's Laboratories of Virtue offers an excellent account of its rise and fall, by the way.

Q: What are the major differences between later use of Walnut Street Jail (Prune Prison) and Eastern State regarding reform techniques? Didn't Walnut Street Prison exercise reform measures (vocation, education, seperation, sewer) first?
A: Walnut Street included a number of really important innovations like hygiene measures—and was one of the first in the country to do so. One way to think about their achievements is what they were replacing. Walnut Street was a reformed colonial jail intended to fix the problems of colonial jails like the spread of disease, the comingling of different groups of prisoners (accused criminals, convicted criminals, debtors, witnesses, children of debtors, men and women, young and old, all together), and corruption by the keeper/jailer. Eastern was designed to fix the problems of Walnut Street and the other proto-prisons: things like overcrowding, disorder/lack of control, the spread of criminality, etc. There are a lot of difference between their regimes, but the biggest is perhaps the use of solitary: Walnut Street was still much like a colonial jail in that prisoners were kept in large rooms (but sorted by status--like gender and criminality) and solitary was only used as punishment. At Eastern, everyone was in solitary. 

Q: Regarding prison Administrators in Eastern, did they self-select to work in this institution? Is there something about them (as individuals) that makes them advocate for the institution?
A: They absolutely self-selected. Technically, inspectors (the highest level) were appointed by the Governor (and later the Supreme Court), but many of them were already active in penal reform circles. Wardens, physicians, and moral inspectors applied for the jobs (or sometimes were asked). Many of them came from a tight-knit group of upper-crust families that basically hung out together in social reform and charitable meetings, local and state government, lived or worked with each other, and many married within this group. The interesting thing is this group contributed both to the admin side and the non-admin reformer side, so a priori, I'd say there was nothing distinct about the administrators relative to the penal reformers. It's more that once they became administrators, a lot of them focused on more practical issues than ideological ones (or both, but recognized the tension). Those who stayed reformers, or who were short-lived admin, sometimes wouldn't allow ideology to give way to practicality. But interestingly, it's that later group that did end up rejecting the Pennsylvania System, or rather requesting its heavy modification, while the admin rejected these (even while they privately manipulated practice behind the scenes) and insisted the Pennsylvania System was perfect as it was (even though they weren't really following that system as they claimed).

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about the brief experiments with public labor post-Revolution?
A: In Philadelphia, Baltimore, and I think one other city, people who previously would have been executed were sentenced instead of public labor in the streets basically doing public works, cleaning the streets, etc. In Philadelphia, they were called Wheelbarrow Men because of the wheelbarrows they used. It was very short lived, only lasting for about a year or two before being repealed in those various places. 

Q: What caused public work penalties in the 1780s to fail?
A: Both public criticism (this was seen as degrading from some folks) but also public un-cooperation: crowds would jeer and harass the prisoners and sometimes provide them with drink. Also, some of the Wheelbarrow men were able to escape. So across the board, it was seen as a disaster. I highly recommend Michael Meranze's book Laboratories of Virtue, which covers this period in several chapters. 

Q: Did Jeremy Bentham’s famous Panopticon figure in the Philadelphia vs Auburn debate, and did Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison figure in your approach?
A: Bentham was not terribly influential at that time. The Western State Penitentiary was however initially (sort of) modeled on the Panopticon, but in practice, it was missing important components (like the central watch tower). In the end, they had to tear it down because it was so badly built, and they did not keep that design in the rebuild. Eastern is built on the radial model, which was also popular in England but is distinct from the panopticon. I don't really use Foucault directly because his account is one of the big national overviews that just sees Eastern and the Pennsylvania System as part of a larger trend rather than taking seriously their differences from the national norm, which people at the time took very seriously. Basically, for Foucault's purposes, that difference didn't matter, but I argue that difference is central to the experience and history of Eastern as well as for the larger story of U.S. prisons in the 19th century.

Q: I am curious when/how your interest in ESP came to be and how that became a book?
A: I've been interested in Eastern since I first learned about it as a sophomore in college taking a history of crime and punishment class. It's so iconic and full of myths (so many of which are wrong or misleading, but intriguing nonetheless). I knew I wanted it to be a big part of my dissertation and even though I ended up changing my diss topic, I stayed with Eastern and focused on what I considered to be an even harder question, why it retained its unique system. And writing my diss, I knew I wanted it to be written like a book, so my diss is basically my first draft of my book. A very early, incomplete draft that took about seven years to fully revise. 

Q: I note that David Rothman's brilliant The Discovery of the Asylum (Little, Brown and Company 1971), which shares your cover image, was published 50 years ago! How does your work relate to his Conscience and Convenience thesis?
A: It is ironic, because I draw much more on Rothman's C&C book than his Discovery of the Asylum, which covers the same time period that I'm looking at. My main interaction with C&C is to take complicate his idea of reformers v. administrators and the ideology v. practice. On the one hand, I see what he says happen much earlier than the Progressive Era he's looking at. But it's also more complicated: these administrators were also penal reformers. It's really everyone in Philadelphia was a penal reformer, but some were penal reformers and administrators. Once they became administrators, they did have a more practical outlook (and those who couldn't quite adapt to that often left sooner than later). So that's one part, just clarifying that the reformer-administrator line is blurrier in this period. The other contribution is to think of Rothman's C&C work (along with similar pieces like Jacob's Stateville) that sees admin as rational managers in conversation with earlier historical works that saw admin and reformers as true believers (part of the Great Man and Whig history orientation of the early and mid-20th C) and with some of the recent historical work that sees admin as basically evil, horrible people. I argue that we can't see admin as wearing just one of these hats---the rational manager, the true believer, or the bad actor. The men in my study really were all three (or at least two). For example, some of the most devoted, true believer like admin (such as two of the Quaker wardens) also manipulated the system (like many other admin there) and also tortured prisoners and embezzled from the prison. If we only think of them as rational managers, or as bad actors, or true believers, we can't understand their behavior. We really have to recognize that complexity and try to understand them on their own terms rather than on a single frame we impose on them.  

Q: My great grandfather was in the prison after the Civil War, where he served in the Irish Brigade.  Is there a way to research more about my great grandfather and why he was there?
A: There are registries of prisoners listed in a variety of locations. The APS has the moral instructor's log books, that contain some prisoners and details about their behavior. There are also intake logs at the state archives which list the incoming prisoners and their features (including sometimes scars, height, complexion, drinking habits, marital status, etc.). Beyond that, the warden's log contains some info on prisoner misbehavior, intake behavior, and release. There's also a record of discipline that was meted out. I think most of those use the prisoners names, but some documents only use their numbers. I would start by finding his name in an intake log and finding his number as well as the years of his confinement and then you can consult those sources to find references. Depending on the years, you might also find him mentioned in the Foulke diary I mentioned or even some correspondence, especially in the later years as restrictions about correspondence loosened.  

Q: Since he had thoughts on virtually everything else, did Benjamin Franklin have any thoughts about incarceration?
A: He helped to found the first major penal reform society; in fact, he hosted at his own home Benjamin Rush's great talk (later published as a pamphlet) calling for "penitentiary houses." That talk became the de facto first meeting of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which was founded in 1787. Unfortunately, Franklin died in 1790 (basically right when Walnut Street Jail was undergoing substantial reform based on Rush's and others' comments, and the efforts of PSAMPP's lobbying and hands-on work). So basically, all of this was happening at the very end of his life, but he did have a big impact on helping facilitate the early conversations.  

Extended answers from Peter Davidson (PD), panelist from “The Promise and Pitfalls of Citizen Science,” Panel 2: Historical Perspectives

Question: Do meteorites fall evenly across the earth or do some areas seem to get more - or are better observed?
PD: In general meteorites can fall anywhere on Earth. Areas where meteorites are more easily spotted are in large deserts and in Antarctica. As you can imagine, most of the meteorites that land on Earth fall into lakes, seas, and oceans. 

Question: What is the composition of the meteorite?
PD: Meteorites fall into three very broad categories - stony, stony-iron and iron. Their composition varies widely depending on which category they fall into. Stony meteorites are composed of silicate minerals such as olivine and pyroxene but often contain iron-bearing minerals. Some stony meteorites (chondrites) are very primitive and date back to the very beginning of the formation of the Solar System. Carbonaceous chondrites contain organic compounds such as amino acids and may have had a part to play in the beginning of Life on Earth. Iron meteorites are composed of iron-nickel alloys and are thought to represent the core of a planet or planetoid.

Question: How widely known was the meteorite fall beyond the British Isles? And have the citizen science drawings and other contributions proved useful over time?
PD: Although the meteorite was not a particularly rare type, indeed it was one of the most common types of meteorite, two facts served to make this famous. One was the striking and falling through the roof of the house, the other that it was seen to hit the ground - both rare occurrences even today. The photographic archive also was unique in its time for the record it made of the fall sites and the people involved. 

Question: What is the importance of collections for citizen science, both as it was understood historically and for aiding present-day initiatives?
PD: As a curator in a National Museum, I am perhaps a little biased in talking about collections. I would say that public collections like ours is available to both professional and non-professional researchers and organizations to further "citizen science" projects. The availability of curators is also vital to projects and many of my colleagues take part in them. 

Question: Are there incidents where observers and scientists disagree about whether a rock is a meteorite?
PD: As part of my day-to-day job, I get many inquires from members of the public who think they have found a meteorite - so far the total count is nil! One or two have found it difficult to accept that they are wrong despite whet they have read online. Nevertheless I always preface my reply by saying "In my opinion...". In the meteorite world, a new word has arisen to describe these false finds and that is "meteorwrongs". We do have a sample of a discredited meteorite in our collections which was listed as a bona-fide meteorite before further research revealed its new identity. Today, with all the tools at our disposal, it is very rare to get an identification wrong. 

Question: When did professional scientists become interested in meteorites? Are there folk interests/traditions that predate?
PD: The science of meteoritics came of age when scientists began to accept that meteorites came from space and were not volcanic or weather related phenomena. It is not by accident that meteoritics and meteorology have the same semantic root. One suggestion for the origin of meteorites was that they were created in thunder clouds. If I had to pick a year when the extra-terrestrial origin of meteorites was established it would be 1794 when E F F Chladni's book on the Pallas iron was published. After that, despite early skepticism, meteorites were eventually recognized for what they were. Observations of meteors, shooting stars and fireballs dates back to ancient times. Aristotle is generally accepted as one of the earliest authors on the subject and was the first to use the term.