Stream app turns citizens into scientists

By CHELSEA MONGEAU
Capital News Service
LANSING – At the bottom of Chris Lowry’s research project homepage is a bold motto: “We
are all scientists.”
It’s a mantra that Lowry, an assistant professor of hydrogeology at the University of Buffalo in New York, follows while seeking to understand how water moving through watersheds changes over time across the Great Lakes region. Lowery can’t collect data from more than 50 places at once by himself, so he’s recruiting “citizen scientists” in Michigan, Wisconsin and New York. His new phone app, CrowdHydrology, allows anyone to send information on stream depths in specific locations with the swipe of a thumb. Jill Martin, an interpretive naturalist for Indian Springs Metropark in White Lake, is setting up
several stations there. An estimated 70,762 visitors came to the park in 2013.