CCS About Us
About Us
The Center for Community and Citizen Science at the UC Davis School of Education is focused on the promise and potential of science outside of typical academic and professional silos. Our mission—to help scientists, communities, and other members of the public collaborate on science to address environmental problems as a part of civic life—recognizes the inspiring possibilities that emerge when we dismantle assumptions about who can (and can’t) do real science, and think creatively about what collaboration can look like.
Our Specific Commitments to Anti-Racism
July 2020
In early June, 2020, the Center for Community and Citizen Science acknowledged that while some of our ongoing work is explicitly oriented toward equity and social justice, we have also failed to advance equity and justice through the entirety of our work, particularly in the context of academia, which is inextricably linked to historical and ongoing marginalization of BIPOC. We have an obligation to examine our own work, our own everyday actions, and our institutional context, and identify ways that these perpetuate racism.
Working Toward Racial Justice
June 11, 2020
We at the Center for Community and Citizen Science are horrified and saddened by the most recent iterations of anti-Blackness and systemic racism in our society, our communities, and our institutions. While the events of recent weeks have laid bare their consequences, these systems have always existed in the United States. The murders of George Floyd, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only recent examples, among countless others, of Black people suffering under a centuries-old system of white supremacy.
Our People
The Center for Community and Citizen Science is a team of faculty, staff, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduate interns who collaborate with partners from local, state, and federal agencies, Tribes, non-profit organizations, universities, school districts, and more. Learn more about the people who help advance the Center’s research and programs.
Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship
Training, mentorship, and funding for graduate students in conservation
The Center for Community and
Citizen Science offers the Community and Citizen Science in
Conservation Fellowship to support graduate students across
disciplines in integrating participatory methods to research.
Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Course
The Center for Community and Citizen
Science offers a 2-unit ”Community and Citizen Science
in Conservation” course at UC Davis. The course involves
weekly discussion and exploration of community and citizen
science (CCS) approaches and applications broadly related to
conservation. With an emphasis on recent academic literature,
each session focuses on a different topic such as
equity and justice, project design and implementation, and
participant and conservation benefits. Other topics are
identified and explored based on student interest. This course
allows students to develop ideas for CCS projects within
their own research.
Students who complete the course are eligible to apply for the CCS in Conservation Fellowship, offered annually by the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science.
If you have any questions, please contact Ryan Meyer, rmmeyer@ucdavis.edu.
CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency
A Community Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi
Project overview
In August of last year, I submitted
a proposal to the Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship
program. This collaborative project is titled “Cultivating Youth
and Community Resiliency: A Community Science Approach to Land
Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi”. Through
this project, we seek to address a global environmental and
social issue -wildfire- through a place-based, culturally
responsive, and culturally sustaining, curriculum.
CCSiC Fellow Highlight: Learning about coyotes in San Francisco from their scat
In recent decades, humans and
animals have increasingly co-occurred in high densities in urban
areas. Although declines in biodiversity are associated with
urbanization, numerous species have adjusted to and thrive in
cities. The success of urban animals is largely attributed to the
expansion of their diet to include human-provided food, resulting
in frequent conflicts with people. These conflicts have
wide-ranging financial, health, and ecosystem-level consequences,
necessitating a deeper understanding of organismal adaptation to
human resources.
