News and Stories

Polar exploration has been largely the priviledge of the elite - until now. Craig Mattheison established the Polar Academy a decade ago to enable young people with diverse and often difficult life experiences to benefit from all the positive personal development that can come from taking part in team expeditions in the polar environment. Moreover, he has found that citizen science initiatives within expeditions have formed a critical part of the process.

Emerging National Geographic Explorer and Cherry Keaton Award recipient, Dr Pip Howell is investigation a novel and potentially game-changing technique of biodiversity mapping using audio recordings. Enlisting the help of scores of travellers venturing into cloud forest habitats, she has created a database of audio spectra which can be used to map the biodiversity in any field recording. She talks to the Foundation about the challenges of enlisting and organising a citizen science project of this scale.

For more than two decades, Emily Penn has been sailing the worlds oceans with teams of volunteers on all-female voyages. Along the way they have gathered vital data about marine plastic pollution significantly adding to scientific databases and contributing to global research. This mission has been paired with onboard wellbeing and sessions that help each crew re-evaluate their aspirations and life trajectories. We find out more about how these two missions come hand in hand.

Misba Khan is the first, and so far, only, British Muslim woman to have skied to the North Geographic Pole. Since completing the ski in 2018 she has been called on to share her experiences with teenage women within the British Muslim community. She talks about how her effort to be in nature has brought her many personal benefits including a greater understanding of her faith. She talks to the Foundation about why she feels this is an important message to share.

Mads St Clair has built a reputation for standard-setting community science initiatives and marine research in her adopted home of Indonesia. Disillusioned with the world of academia, which she views as restrictive, all the output from her research is freely available through open source platforms which anyone can contribute to and share data. In this article, she explains why she feels this is the future for marine research and how citizen science is at the heart of it.