Volunteer With Us!

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Volunteer With Us!

At Community Science Institute, there are many ways that you can volunteer your time to make a difference in our watershed. We understand that everyone has different interests, availabilities, and rhythms in their lives. That shouldn’t stop you from participating in community science! Whether you are itching to wade into a stream to collect a water sample or prefer to help from the comfort of your own home, we have options for you to support our work.

If you’re interested in volunteering, please send us an email at info@communityscience.org!

Water Quality Monitoring

Community Science Institute leads four different Water Quality Monitoring Partnerships. You can read about the purpose of each one in more depth on our Monitoring Partnerships page.

Our Synoptic Stream and Lake volunteers collect water samples 3-4 times per year at fixed locations along a stream or on Cayuga Lake. These samples are then analyzed at CSI’s state-certified water testing laboratory for analysis producing a rich dataset of regulatory-quality water quality data. This program requires an annual refresher training (a part of our Quality Assurance Project Plan) where volunteers re-calibrate equipment, review sampling protocol and locations, learn about the water quality trends in the subwatershed where you sample, and coordinate the year’s sampling events. It is also a great opportunity to connect with other volunteers who sample near you and build community!

Our Cayuga Lake Harmful Algal Bloom (HABs) Monitoring volunteers (AKA HABs Harriers) commit to weekly surveys from July – September along the shoreline of Cayuga Lake. When volunteers spot a HAB, they collect a sample, and transport it to CSI’s state-certified lab for analysis. Volunteers determine the length of shoreline they monitor and often live right along the shoreline; many of them use their monitoring duties as an opportunity to spend more time on or near the lake. This program also requires an annual re-training — research on harmful algal blooms is moving fast!

Biomonitoring volunteers collect samples annually at the same locations along streams as a way to monitor long-term stream health based on which stream critters live there. If you’re interested in benthic macroinvertebrates and want to interact with them more than once a year, we also hold weekly Open Lab Nights in the winter when these samples are sorted! You don’t have to be a regular biomonitoring volunteer to attend these; send an email to Adrianna Hirtler, our Biomonitoring Coordinator, at adrianna@communityscience.org, for more information about this program.

Finally, volunteers for our Red Flag Monitoring Program survey monthly throughout the year, conducting streamside chemistry tests to determine the stream’s overall water quality. Volunteers follow quality control measures that we will train you in when you start so we can be confident in the results. Volunteers with this program mail or email their results to us at CSI.

You can find data from our Synoptic Stream and Lake Monitoring Program and Red Flag Monitoring Program on our free, public database. We are currently adding a HABs portion of our database which is estimated to be completed in March 2023.

If you are interested in this work but are not sure you can commit to the regularity of water sampling, we are always looking for volunteers to help us transport samples to Community Science Institute’s laboratory. Many of our water quality tests must be performed shortly after sample collection, so this is a hugely important piece of the water sampling process. Our laboratory is located in Ithaca, so if you regularly commute to Ithaca from anywhere in the Finger Lakes Region anyway (or perhaps you just enjoy driving), this may be a good way for you to join our team!

Community Science Institute's Committees

Another way we invite community participation is through membership on our committees. Each of these committees meets once monthly via Zoom, making this a great volunteer opportunity if you want to help out from the comfort of your own home!

Our Fundraising Committee focuses on ways to improve the effectiveness of current fundraising efforts and brainstorm novel ideas for fundraising. We fundraise annually through our membership drive and have developed a new Business Membership strategy to engage local businesses who are interested in water quality, conservation, and supporting the crucial work CSI conducts.

We would love to have volunteers join us to brainstorm ways to build meaningful relationships with our community or other creative ways to expand CSI’s fundraising efforts!

Our Outreach Committee has been on hiatus during a transition of staffing but will reconvene in January 2025.

The committee focuses on ways to improve the effectiveness and reach of the CSI mission through our messaging and public programming. This committee is led by Alyssa Johnson, Community Science Institute’s Outreach and Programs Coordinator and Cayuga Lake HABs Monitoring Program Coordinator. We offer a range of outreach opportunities already, however that is limited by staff availability and capacity. With the help of our committee, we would strive to:

improve our outreach and education accessibility and reach,
develop a media strategy to expand our connection to our community, and
share and delegate outreach responsibilities among the committee so that we may have more public presence in local communities .

We would love to have volunteers and community members on this committee who are passionate about building a scientifically literate community and trust in science and are interested in sharing CSI’s mission in local communities through education, media and other CSI events.

If you are interested in volunteering, fill out this form or send us an email at info@communityscience.org! We are always open to creative ways you can contribute, too. If you have a skill you would like to offer us that does not show up on this list, don’t be shy! We would love to talk about additional options. We hope to see you soon!

Volunteer With Us!