How to Get Volunteer Hours Using Zooniverse

Are you a high school student? Do you need volunteer hours? Do you want options that allow you to stay at home? If you answered yes to these questions, I have a solution for you! Read on as I show you how to save time, money, and resources by doing your volunteer hours at home.

What Is Zooniverse?

Zooniverse, originally started by Oxford University’s Chris Lintott in 2007, is a “people-powered” research organization that is driven by volunteers, just like you and me. Anybody, account created or not, can choose what discipline of research they want to contribute to. On the “Projects” page, you will find biology, history, medicine, space, and others; once you choose your discipline, you will be presented with many different projects to choose from. Hovering over a project will provide you with a very brief explanation as to what the project is about, and once you find a project that piques your interest, you can click on it to receive further instruction.

The following images show some of the disciplines you can choose from, as well as some of the projects listed in the space discipline (the one I do the most work in).

You can choose from 11 different disciplines!

Diving Right In

For most (if not all) projects, when you click on them, you will be taken to a page explaining in detail what the project is about. This may be all on one page, or you may have to click “Learn more” to be taken to the “About” page for the project. Once you click the “Get started” button at the bottom of the description, or the “Classify” button towards the top right, you will be taken to your first set of data. Overlayed will be a set of instructions that you will read and click through to help you learn how to perform the task(s) involved in the project. You can always pull the instructions back up at any time after you close them if you forget what you need to do or just need a refresher.

The “Talk” page at the top right is a place where volunteer researchers who have an account and are logged in can make comments or ask questions about the data sets they are given or the project in general. Once comments are posted, other users can contribute by adding their inputs to the post. Depending on the project, you may see Talk Boards such as “Say Hi” (an introductory board for newer members), “Questions About *insert project*” (a place for clarification and explanation), and “Events”/”Announcements” (for news on what is going on with the project over time).

Each project will also have a “Collect” page where pictures of interesting or groundbreaking data sets are published to showcase astonishing anomalies, cool visuals, or exciting discoveries made by the volunteers and teams behind the projects.

The following is a picture of the previously mentioned links you will use for each project. They are found on the top right of every project’s page.

You can find this ribbon of links at the top of every project page.

How to Verify Your Volunteer Hours

Now, to get to what you may have been wondering this whole time… How do you get your official volunteer hours from all of this? It sounds fun, but if it’s all at home and online, how will you be able to verify your work? Depending on what you are using your volunteer hours for—e.g., working towards a club certificate (like me), or for college/uni applications—the process will be different. For college/uni applications, as well as Connections Academy’s Leadership Club (which I am a part of), you will need to document your progress and participation as you go. Zooniverse does not currently have a built-in time tracking service, but most organizations and clubs will accept screenshots of your work, as well as screenshots of your Zooniverse account, showing your progress and what you have done. It is estimated that 100 classifications take roughly 2 hours to do, so if your Zooniverse account shows that you have done over 400 classifications, you should have about 8 hours of volunteer time logged.

The following is what a brand new Zooniverse account looks like on the “Your Stats” page. This is where you will be able to find your classifications and be able estimate the time you have spent volunteering.

The “Your Stats” page will keep track of your classifications. From there, you can estimate your volunteer hours.

Conclusion

Now that you know about Zooniverse and what it is, how it works, and how to contribute to research while also gaining volunteer hours, get out there! Do some research and have some fun! 😀

Sources

Information and Helpful Links

• Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/
• United States Gov. Citizen Science Zooniverse Page: https://www.citizenscience.gov/catalog/364/#
• Oxford University’s 10 Year Anniversary Page: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-12-12-zooniverse-10-years-people-powered-research 
• Zooniverse Volunteering Requirements: https://blog.zooniverse.org/2020/03/26/fulfilling-service-hour-requirements-through-zooniverse/?_ga=2.35656672.1396853694.1668427687-32526660.1666037072 

Images

All images are screenshots of the Zooniverse website.

We Hope to See You Again Next Year!