Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group

Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group was founded in April 2018. It aims are to complete data collections and analysis on behalf of our Community Nature Reserve.

Citizen Science of any kind is simply when local people start asking questions about their environment. In Felixstowe, our 35 Citizen Science members decide on new projects about three months ahead of completion. That gives us enough time to plan and organise our work. Recent examples of these activities are available on our Facebook page.

In response to our information shared through social media, we have received positive feedback from citizen scientists, ecologists and geographers from all over the UK including Oxford University and Imperial College London. We also recently welcomed to Felixstowe an MSc student from Copenhagen University who wanted to take a detailed look at what we do.

Soon after we began, Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group became a Network Supporter of the European Citizen Science Association. That means we get to share the results of our work with a far wider readership. We also have the opportunity to participate in an exciting variety of European projects. Examples include a video we made which appeared in a Berlin conference a few months ago. It is also exciting and encouraging when European citizen scientists include our work as case studies in their presentations.

In North America, Communities magazine had been kind enough to publish articles about our work in Felixstowe. We have also made a podcast recording for California’s Sustainability Network.

One of our biggest challenges over the last year had been Covid-19 and the need to maintain social distancing. However, through the use of Zoom, Skype and email, we have continued to produce one new project each month.

In 2021, we have plans to produce more wildlife surveys. Those will be shared on our Facebook page in the form of graphs and maps. We also want to complete a new impact analysis on behalf of Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve.

For more information about the work of Felixstowe’s Citizen Science Group, please look for our name on Facebook.

Supplied by Dr Adrian Cooper