Springwatch

The BBC has recently launched Springwatch, an initiative where listners and viewers will record the first signs of spring on a website. The rubric says that "this will help scientists to understand how sping is changing". This is one in a long line of do-it-youself type initatives (mainly surveys) that have been done recently, including counting how many bugs are squashed on your car numberplate, reporting visitors to birdtables and the like.

Has anyone taken part in this sort of thing? What are your motives for doing so and do you feel that you are actually taking part in genuine scientific research? We'd be interested to know how/if the results of these sorts of studies are actually used by scientists. Does anyone know if any of these results have been published in 'seroius' peer-reviewed journals?


The voxScience Team