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Our first citizen science survey project.

On 14 March 2018 after quite a lot of planning we undertook the first of our citizen science survey projects at the entrance to Chichester Harbour on the West Sussex coast.  In the months before the survey we had undertaken a great deal of planning in order to make sure that the methodology was academically sound and consistent with previous work.  Having established the methodology all we had to do was recruit the volunteers.

volunteers at registration for the survey

All we can say is WOW!

We were completely overwhelmed by the number of volunteers that signed up to participate in the survey.  Over 90 registered through our eventbrite page with about 70 turning up on the day.  This meant that we had enough people to survey a massive area of the beach.

With any citizen science project it is always difficult to ensure consistency of methods and results so we had supervisors in place to oversee various sections of the beach.

volunteers with microplastic samples

What’s Next?

We are now going through the material, sorting out all the organic matter so that we can do some proper analysis of the plastics.  The results will all be part of a much bigger project to assess the impact off microplastics on the coastal communities.

Sorting through the microplastics
David Jones

Author David Jones

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