Galaxy Zoo project 2 recruits amateur astronomers to help
identify galaxies in satellite images; and the E-birds project
3 uses bird watchers to plot distribution and migration. An
important goal of many citizen science projects is to educate
the public in the process of collecting scientific observations.
For example, the Galaxy Zoo project provided tutorials and
instructions to the public to increase their knowledge about
different kinds of galaxies.
Perhaps because citizen science projects have mainly been
initiated by professional scientists seeking data, they have
rarely engaged the public in another phase of the scientific
process - the dissemination of scientific knowledge. However,
doing so would serve an important public good. Writing
about science would probably educate those citizen scientists
involved far better than would limited data collection. In addition,
the product of their work, scientific articles written for
the general public, would serve the goal of promoting public
understanding of science far beyond the small group of citizen
scientists involved in the writing.