For British Science Week 2016 we are partnering with the Zooniverse project, Penguin Watch.
This is a visual citizen science project that asks people to identify penguins in their habitats. Help us view a variety of images and pick out the penguins!
Penguin Watch is a partnership between the University of Oxford, Australian Antarctic Division, and the Darwin Initiative.
Nearly 40,000 volunteers have explored over 4.5 million images covering 100 sites across Antarctica. Currently, there are numerous serious threats to marine predators in the Southern Ocean and there is little baseline information from which to measure change. With the help of the public annotating the images taken across Antarctica, the team will be able to measure changes in the penguin’s behaviours, habitat and the larger ecosystem from the data that’s collected.
By annotating the images, you are helping the Penguin Watch team to succeed in their project goals by obtaining quantitative data from photographs, which will directly improve our understanding of these species, while also assisting in their conservation.
During British Science Week, we are aiming to complete a further 250,000 classifications. It’s quick and simple to take part – just visit the Penguin Watch website, click “classify”, and get penguin spotting!