About Us


Citizen Scientists is an entirely volunteer driven, not-for-profit group that focuses on ecological monitoring, environmental training and education. Since establishment in 2001, we have been monitoring the stream health at various sites throughout the Rouge River watershed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.


Citizen Scientists was formed with three main goals:

To educate volunteers:

Using in-class workshops and presentations and in-field training exercises, we educate and train the local community to collect accurate and reliable stream data including stream morphology (e.g., water depth, velocity, substrate, bank features, etc.), fisheries, benthic invertebrates, and temperature in order to build understanding and awareness about their local ecosystems and the issues that degrade them. Volunteers learn how and why stream monitoring is important and how it connects to environmental protection.


To foster local stewardship:

We reach out to local community members, college and university students, experts in the environment field and other interested volunteers in order to build awareness and understanding of local aquatic ecosystems and their related issues (e.g. endangered species, stormwater management and aquatic invasive species) with the hopes of shaping a more sustainable future.


To monitor local watersheds:

We collect stream morphology, fisheries, benthic invertebrates, and temperature data in an accurate and reliable manner using a government approved protocol as well as other stream monitoring techniques. Group members collect a range of environmental information, learn about local species, their habitats and the ecological processes that support them. The data we collect is shared with government agencies, environmental organizations and researchers, and is available to the general public.

Contact us


For more information about our group, our activities, volunteering or donating to us please email us at info@citizenscientists.ca or write to us at:

Citizen Scientists

1749 Meadowvale Road

Toronto, Ontario

M1B 5W8

Canada

SOLEC 2011 Success Story Award Recipient

We wish to thank all of our hard working volunteers who have worked on our Water's Alive Project over the past couple of years.


Since 1996, the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference Steering Committee has recognized various organizations and agencies with a SOLEC Success Story Award. In the Fall of 2011, the Committee chose to recognize Citizen Scientists for our important work and we received special recognition from the Canadian and American Consuls General at SOLEC 2011.


Each project must exemplify a strong commitment to improving the environment within the Great Lakes basin by demonstrating all of the following criteria:

- show improvement in the “integrity” of the Great Lakes or local ecosystem

- forge linkages among environment, community, and/or economy

- create a “win-win” situation where all involved parties benefited

- form strong partnerships

- demonstrate adequate monitoring of effectiveness and/or influenced decision-making

- develop and distributed educational information that promotes positive activities and attitudes regarding the environment


This award exemplifies the commitment and hard work of our volunteers, as well as our organization to our local ecosystems and environment. Moving forward we aim to continue this important work.


Thank you so much to everyone involved, we couldn’t have done it without you!

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