Book Review: Citizen Science, How Ordinary People are Changing the Face of Discovery

By Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher Caren Cooper. (2016). Citizen Science: How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery. Overlook Press: New York, NY. $28.95. While publications proliferate on the subject of citizen science, an introduction to inform and delight all readers has been conspicuously absent until Caren Cooper’s new book, Citizen Science: How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery hit the shelves this spring. In the pages of Citizen Science we find compelling stories of citizen scientists who shape the field as we now know it. Cooper tells these stories not only as entertainment, although her prose and humour certainly keeps readers entertained, but, importantly, to inspire readers to take up citizen science themselves. Cooper takes us all the way back to 1837, where we meet William Whewell—credited with introducing the term “scientist”—who won the prestigious Royal Medal from the Royal Society for his research on ocean ...