| Citizen science is becoming a major force for research and public engagement around the world. This thesis explores the growing field of citizen science in the context of museums. Citizen science takes many forms, and our study suggests that field-based, biology projects are the most common. Conservatively, 20% of projects are associated with museums. Citizen science presents a novel way for museums to fulfill their multifaceted missions with a single program. I also examined science attitudes of citizen science participants and non-participants. This study found more positive attitude scores for citizen science participants than for non-participants. A difference between adult and youth attitudes was detected, suggesting youth are a potential target audience for projects seeking to influence science attitudes. Creating reliable, standardized tools to measure social impacts is necessary to improve the foundation of citizen science. |
