Citizen Science with CosmoQuest: Science and Strategies

CosmoQuest began as a citizen science portal for online users that would recreate virtually the kind of experience one might have at a research center. Through projects that map craters on the Moon and asteroid Vesta, citizen scientists have shown that accurate, authentic science research can be done through crowd-sourcing. We present comparisons of citizen-analyzed data to those analyzed by planetary scientists and show that there is a high degree of correlation in the results. These projects allow for new science to be done that otherwise could not have been achieved without the help of citizen scientists. These projects are also integrated within a larger virtual environment that provides educational content, media, and community interaction through blogs, forums, online classes, video seminars, teacher resources, and more.