Geek As Citizen

Activities For The Civic Geek: Promote Space Exploration

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There are few things more geeky than space exploration.  So gear up and geek out to help us get to the stars.

Space may be the final frontier.  Exploring space has given us many scientific benefits.  But sometimes it seems we forget the value of space travel and get distracted by issues here on earth – forgetting that everything from weather satellites to new technology to the unifying drive to explore benefit us now.

Space travel also requires advocacy.  It’s expensive.  It’s hard work.  It’s often riven with politics.

If you’re any kind of geek you probably support more, better, and frankly expanded space travel.  If you’re a specific kind of geek you probably are really a supporter.  So help you and your fellow geeks promote space exploration.

You could:

  • Invite people to speak on it at various geek events – what’s a good convention without a discussion of space travel?
  • Support some of the causes listed below – or join them.  Everyone needs help.
  • Find local events sponsored by various space-supporting group and get your friends and geek groups to go there.

We’re not going to get off the planet waiting for someone else to do it for us.

But you can make a difference.

Resources

  • 100 Year Starship – They want humanity to be able to leave the solar system by the 22nd century.  Speaking, events, advocacy, and more.
  • Centennial Challenge – A NASA event to help develop new space technology.  If you’re not in the US there’s probably similar groups in your country.
  • Penny 4 Nasa – A group working to raise awareness of NASA, get increases in funding, and promote space exploration. If you’re not in the US there’s probably similar groups in your country.
  • Planetary Society – Sponsors charities, events, advocacy, and projects to promote space exploration.

Activities For The Civic Geek: Support Industry Veterans

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Sometimes the people that are vital to our geeky communities hit hard times.  Rally to help them out.

We’ve all seen sad stories of people that were foundational in our geekery.  The great artist who has a tough time.  The great author who’s in a health crisis.  Many people who were vital but now forgotten having hard times.  As geeks, we can help.  These are people that made our world, our industry, our media.  When they have financial troubles, we can chip in as civic geeks.

What you can do varies by industry, industry awareness, and more, but a few things you can try:

  • Some professions have organizations to raise money for industry veterans in need.  You can always donate.
  • For organizations helping out veterans in need, some do various charity events.
  • If a famous veteran has a problem, perhaps your group, club, convention or guild can raise a fundraiser.

What you can do, who’s helping, and how you can help varies.  I’d like to see more organizations supporting veterans of geeky media, like the one below.  Then again maybe you’ll found one . . .

Resources:

Comics:

  • The Hero Initiative – Being in comics can be a tough road, and this organization helps support comics creators in need.

RPGs:

Activities For The Civic Geek: Citizen Science

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Citizen Science is the idea that we, as citizens, can and should be involved in scientific pursuits, research, and promotion.  It’s a profound idea mixing civic involvement, science, and of course pure geekery.

“Citizen Science” is a lovely term for people from all walks of life doing and helping with scientific work as citizens.  You don’t have to be a scientist to help – but you may work with them, collecting data, building tools, crunching numbers, and more.  It’s a mix of citizenship, crowdsourcing, and science.

It’s hard to sum up just what you can do as a citizen scientist, because there’s so many options.  The resources below can guide you, but a few ideas:

  • You may gather information on environmental change in your area – great for your friends, family, club, or convention to help out with.
  • Use your writing skills to transcribe rare documents and scientific information into more enduring formats – or even other languages.
  • Promote science education at your convention.
  • Use your knowledge of your local area to help with civic disaster planning based on your area’s unique challenges.

That’s just a a small idea of what you can do as a citizen scientist.  A little research will almost certainly find a project that’s right for you and your geeky interests -or your club, convention, writer’s group, and more.

If you don’t have time?  Well invite citizen science groups to your school, place of work, club, or convention so they can talk about what they do and recruit people.

As a citizen scientist you’ll help out worthy causes, learn, and make connections.  There’s really no downside to it except you only have so much time in the day.

 

Citizen Science

  • Computing
    • Code For America – An alliance of coders and citizens that innovate on technology, draft policies, and create apps to help citizenship.
  • Environment
  • Space
  • STEM
    • Citizen Science Alliance – A collaborative effort of scientists, software developers, and educators to promote and organize citizen science and citizen science projects, as well as science awareness. Their projects are tracked in Zooniverse.com.
    • Science Cheerleader – A site focusing on Cheerleaders who chose science careers, promoting science awareness, and where the former can promote the latter, all with good humor and a serious mission.
    • Scientific America’s Citizen Science Page – Scientific American’s resource for citizen scientists, listing projects and updates. A good way to find something to fit your interests.
    • SciStarter – A site to find, join, and contribute to scientific endeavors. Contains a large database of citizen science projects for you to check out.
    • Zooniverse – The Citizen Science Alliance’s website for hosting citizen science projects. A good place to go and find specific projects to get involved in.