5 Popular Citizen Science Projects of 2023

In 2023, volunteers like you made over two million contributions to SciStarter Affiliate projects. That’s two million data points scientists wouldn’t have had otherwise.

The top five projects this year included both perennial favorites and newcomers, and touched on subjects near and far: the night sky, backyards and even inside our bodies. Check them out below, and if you haven’t yet, give them a try!

As the year comes to a close, we’re also celebrating citizen scientists who have gone above and beyond this year. We encourage you to read the story of SciStarter Ambassador Jim Webster and how and why he’s bringing citizen science to his community on the SciStarter blog. Read it here.

We’ll see you next year!

The SciStarter Team

#1: Stall Catchers

Presented by: Human Computation Institute

Play a game on the free mobile app that directly accelerates research on Alzheimer’s disease.

Scientists have discovered links between stalls — clogged blood vessels in the brain — and Alzheimer’s. Reducing these stalls seems to reduce symptoms. Research is ongoing, but a bottleneck is sifting through footage from the brains of mice, scoring blood vessels as “flowing” or “stalled.”Luckily, we can help. After a quick tutorial you can start scoring stalls and fighting Alzheimer’s.

Location: Online

2023 Contributions: 1,429,661

Get Started!

#2: CoCoRaHS: the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network

Report on the weather in your area — all you need is a rain gauge!

Register your location and then monitor how much rain, snow or hail falls. Submit your measurements through CoCoRaHS’s interactive website to provide data for natural resource, education and research applications.

Location: North America

2023 Contributions: 227,745

Get Started!

#3: iNaturalist

Image credit: iNaturalist

Presented by: California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society

Have you ever been on a walk and wanted more information on an interesting flower or butterfly? iNaturalist can show you!

Snap photos of trees, insects, mammals or any flora and fauna to find out what they are. Every observation you upload also contributes to biodiversity science, from the rarest butterfly to the most common backyard weed. Scientists gather data about the natural world from your images — all you have to do is observe!

Location: Global

2023 Contributions: 152,667

Get Started!

#4: Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors

Presented by: NASA/Zooniverse

There are celestial bodies larger than Jupiter lurking near to our Solar System that have remained hidden because they’re so hard to spot.

These cool brown dwarfs can be spotted in telescope images of the night sky, and astronomers need your help to do it. Look through images of space and point out potential brown dwarfs near Earth.

Location: Online

2023 Contributions: 79,000

Get Started!

#5: Eterna

Presented by: Stanford Medicine

Become an RNA scientist and hunt for new RNA-based medicines with Eterna.All you need to do is solve short, simple puzzles which help scientists sort and analyze data that can be turned into new therapeutic compounds.Check out their latest article.

Location: Online

2023 Contributions: 71,856

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