gamifying science
Thanks to this story on NPR Sunday morning, my family has discovered PenguinWatch.org, a project through which researchers crowdsource science, appealing to the public to help classify hundreds of thousands of photographs of penguins taken all over the world via remote camera installations.
Basically, people can visit the web site, where they’re presented with photos, usually containing penguins. By clicking on the penguins to identify adults, chicks, and eggs, vistors help scientists to collate the images, and by doing so, track penguin populations’ size, movements, and breeding behavior.
My youngest child is currently obsessed with clicking on penguins; we’ve spent the last two evenings clicking on penguins to help the scientists. It kind of feels like a game; or at least it works like one, but the simple act of clicking on penguins gives us a chance to help animal researchers do valuable science, playing some small part in something bigger.
