Abstract

Publicly Accessible Data Analysis & Visualization for Citizen Science
Track: Mapping
Authors: leah wasser, Sandra Henderson, Eric Russell

A unique partnership between the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and National Geographic FieldScope has yielded freely accessible, data analysis and visualization tools fueled by the powerful ArcGIS server tools and rendered using the Flex API. These effective tools facilitate enhanced understanding of publicly collected vegetation phenophase data, through the Citizen Science program, Project BudBurst. In turn, they have been used by citizen scientists across the country to answer important questions surrounding the influence of landuse and climate change, on vegetation (and in turn the species that this vegetation supports). Further these tools have been found to effectively support student scientific inquiry and thus meet numerous educational standards in the classroom. This presentation will overview the Project BudBurst FieldScope tools and in turn demonstrate the power of online web-based GIS data visualization tools in support of scientific inquiry.