NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series - Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences

This page offers easy entry into key resources for project design and project refinement for those who lead, or manage participatory science projects at any stage. Start with a topical post or jump right into the full collection of video archives on the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series page below.

Since 2020, the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series has been sharing best practices and wisdom from leaders in the participatory science field on a range of topics. Resources from the Series include recordings from 40+ virtual events, the NASA Citizen Science Community Handbook, design tools, and more. While these resources were created with NASA-funded projects in mind, they are relevant to all participatory science projects where scientific outcomes are the primary focus.

NASA sponsors participatory science projects across many disciplines in earth and space sciences. What weaves together the portfolio of NASA funded projects is a common focus on scientific outputs and an emphasis on providing meaningful experience for volunteers. In addition to resources, these events surface common challenges that all participatory projects navigate.

AAPS has played an active role in series planning to promote the cross-fertilization of ideas and practices, surface best practices from NASA projects to share with AAPS members, and solidify a coherent program of participatory science activities at NASA. You can find out more about the history of the Series and planning team on the Series website.

Visit the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series archives to learn about project platforms, NASA’s funding process, working with advanced volunteers, metadata, research products, Zooniverse, project design, broadening participation, and more!

Fellow Reflections:

To help us surface targeted wisdom from this extensive series, we engaged an early-career project leader via an AAPS fellowship to investigate key themes from the series. Our Fellow Sadie Coffin shares her reflections in following posts, which feature highlights from and links to series events.

Four Highlights from the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series

Sadie CoffinOctober 16, 2025

Over my 12 month fellowship, I had the opportunity to watch all 35 hours of event recordings on the NASA Cit Sci Leaders seri...

3 Questions that Changed How I think About Volunteers/Audience

Sadie CoffinOctober 16, 2025

https://youtu.be/4t_hrjinR3w In my time as the NASA Cit Sci Leaders series fellow, I’ve come across advice, lessons, and too...

???? Rethinking Data: Building Collaborative Relationships in Citizen Science

Sadie CoffinJuly 24, 2025

https://youtu.be/k9FJlnxo5cQ In this video, I share three big ideas from the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series about how t...

Lessons from Projects that have Cultivated Advanced Participation

Reanna PutnamApril 24, 2025

What makes volunteers feel empowered and motivated to bring their own ideas and expertise to the table? How do project leader...

Building community in a citizen science project: fostering social interaction for meaningful engagement

Sadie CoffinFebruary 28, 2025

When we first launched Redshift Wrangler, I focused on making the science understandable and engaging, but what I hadn’t anti...

Designing for social interaction: reflections from a citizen science project leader

Sadie CoffinFebruary 20, 2025

If I could go back to the beginning of Redshift Wrangler, I would tell myself to follow Jennifer Shirk’s advice from the CitS...

Resources Explained:

In the following posts NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series host Sarah Kirn, the Participatory Science Strategist, NASA at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, provides a history and overview of key resources developed in support of this series.

Resources Explained: Navigating US federal funding for participatory sciences with the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series

Sarah KirnMay 20, 2025

Note: 2025 has brought unprecedented changes to the US federal funding landscape for scientific research, including participa...

Resources Explained: Design Thinking Tools

Sarah KirnMarch 20, 2025

Back in 2021, we produced a series of events for NASA citizen science project leaders focused on citizen science project desi...

Identifying and Planning for your Core Audience

Align your project design with the needs, motivations, and interests of your intended audience and build more rewarding volunteer experiences and better scientific outcomes.

View Quick Start Guide

Fostering Positive Social Interactions

To support long-term engagement... Coming soon.

Working with Advanced Volunteers

Short text here. Coming soon.

Purpose of Guides

The Quick Start Practice Guides are designed to deliver brief guidance to researchers or other project leaders who are designing new citizen or participatory science projects or reviewing existing projects with an eye towards improving their performance for volunteers and science.

Their common structure is designed to be easily scanned by those seeking particular information. They include abundant links for those wishing to learn more.

Identifying and Planning for your Core Audience

View

Fostering Positive Social Interactions to Support Long Term Engagement

Coming Soon

Working with Advanced Volunteers

Coming soon

Support for this featured resource:

Work on this page was supported by an AAPS + NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series Fellowship. If you have a set of resources you’d like to highlight in a similar way, reach out to learn more about how your organization can support an AAPS Fellow.

This material is based upon work supported by NASA under grant number NNX16AB94A awarded to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Reflection tool #1: Whom do I hope to engage in my project?

A helpful worksheet developed as part of the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series to help you define and plan for your core audience.

Access the reflection tool

Reflection Tool #2: Engaging the people you want in your project

A guide to