UTBiome: citizen science and campus community engagement

The University of Texas main campus is located at the heart of the city of Austin. The university campus can be used as “living” laboratory to engage students, faculty, and the public in general, in science. The UTBiome (aka “Mapping the UTBiome”) project, is a cross-disciplinary educational, research and outreach effort to (1) engage the community in the collection and analysis of environmental samples from campus environment, and (2) to create an open access web-based mapping platform to disseminate the environmental and microbiological data obtained. In this project, both indoor and outdoor environments are being interrogated to answer diverse scientific questions. Over 250 citizens from the university community have been involved to date in the collection of biological samples and environment metadata associated with key water quality metrics including temperature, nitrate, phosphate, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, pH, turbidity and fecal indicator bacteria. A data management system was designed and implemented for both, ‘online’ data input through student’s mobile phones and to facilitate sample tracking. In order to fully engage the students and the UT community, we envisioned an interactive and innovative workflow, involving technology, automation, and social media. The interactive mapping platform we have created allow users within and outside the university to access and download the results and associated environmental data by simply clicking on the interactive map. The comprehensive UTBiome map created in ArcGIS can be found in this website http://crwr-utbiome.austin.utexas.edu/utb_webapp/utbiome.html (or just http://tinyurl.com/UTBiomeMap). The online platform design offers access to the environmental information, providing resources for students, faculty and the general public to learn more about the environment that surrounds us.