Citizen-Based Water Quality Monitoring Programs: an Effective Educational Tool for Bridging Private Citizens and Environmental Science

In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified nearly 900 citizen-based monitoring programs in the country.  Water quality monitoring programs have grown worldwide as more individuals are participating in World Water Monitoring Day.  These volunteer-generated data sets have been used in a variety of reports under the Clean Water Act despite potential issues with data integrity.  My research goal is to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of citizen-based monitoring programs so they can be seen as a valuable education tool.  My research focuses on the Citizens’ Monitoring Network (CMN), which has been a part of the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program for 22 years.  I will identify long-term temporal trends of the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary using water quality data collected from CMN volunteers over the past 22 years and compare them to long-term temporal trends from government-collected data.  If volunteer data do not follow government-collected data, then focus may need to be shifted to improving educational training of volunteers in using water quality test kits and equipment.  CMN also focuses on educational-based programming.  These programs focus on water quality and environmental awareness and are tailored to satisfy different age groups; the end result is to get participants interested in water quality and other environmental issues.  I will establish a curriculum that will help improve CMN programs and other similar monitoring programs.  The Elaboration-Likelihood model of persuasion will be used to model program effectiveness.  Within this model, two “persuasion” routes (central and peripheral) can be linked to new and changing attitudes.  The central route requires more cognitive activity where the individual will draw on prior knowledge/experience to evaluate the merits of the argument at hand.  For this route to be successful, the individual must have the motivation and ability to process the information given to them.  The central route is responsible for changes in attitude that are easily comprehensible and impervious to change (long-term) until their attitudes are contested by divergent information.  The peripheral route typically encompasses pleasantries to persuade an individual in accepting an argument.  This route is best suited when the individual’s motivation is low and/or their cognitive ability for processing the information is low.  The limitation of the peripheral route is that it is short-term since the cognitive foundation is low.  Both routes prove value but it is important to know which route is best fitted for a given argument or audience group.