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Citizen Science in the Chesapeake Region

On the Eve of the American Revolution

Find out how the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's Citizen Science in Archaeology program continues the work begun by early Chesapeake scholars, this country's first citizen scientists.

Beginning with the first European settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, until the 1775 battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the Chesapeake region inspired interest among soldiers, merchants, and gentleman scholars in the Old World.  Self-trained, amateur scientists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, fed that interest.  These men committed their observations to paper and sent letters and samples to correspondents in the Old World, most of whom held university degrees, but whose education focused on classical literature and philosophy, theology, and the law. 

These early Chesapeake scholars, whether roaming the countryside or making observations in their own gardens, are the intellectual ancestors of today's citizen scientists, amateurs of all ages and backgrounds engaged in the advancement of knowledge through observation, measurement, analysis, and reporting of the world around them.  In this presentation, Dr. James Gibb explores the history of the citizen scientist from the vantage of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's Citizen Science in Archaeology program, participation which is open to you.

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