The City Fingerprint Project

Recruitment Update

 Cities looking for local citizen science researchers to geo-tag litter


Earlier this year, Litterati kicked off the City Fingerprint Project in collaboration with three cities across the country. We are now working with community partners in Memphis, Tennessee, Norfolk, Virginia, and Hayward, California to recruit and train Citizen Science Researchers with the goal of creating a representative picture of litter. The collection and analysis of litter data for the City Fingerprint Project are made possible by Litterati’s technology for geo-tagging and classifying litter, in-depth qualitative research with our community partners, and the participation of Citizen Science Researchers. 

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

In Memphis, Tennessee we will be collaborating with Keep Memphis Beautiful as well as local organizations like Love 901. We’re also hoping to collaborate with local universities and their sustainability program departments. We are also working closely with Memphis Transformed, Memphis Innovate, Clean Memphis to ensure we connect with potential research candidates from the community. 

 

Numerous university partners have shown interest in the program in Norfolk, Virginia, and we look forward to working with the university students from Norfolk State University, Old Dominion University, and Virginia Wesleyan University. 

Hayward, California has involved the help of Keep Hayward Clean & Green Task Force to support research and recruitment efforts in the city, and we look forward to partnering with other local organizations and universities, including California State University, East Bay, Downtown Streets Team, and conservation groups like the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center.

 
 
 

RESEARCHERS

Citizen Science Researchers will be compensated $555 for each quarterly research project that they are able to participate in the research program and each research candidate will be trained on the Advanced Researcher mode of the Litterati app. We will also host training sessions for each city designed to further empower researchers to collect litter in designated areas using the Litterati City Fingerprint research design. For more information on becoming a Researcher in Memphis, Hayward, or Norfolk, please visit our Research Recruitment page. 

 

RESEARCH DESIGN

Our research design uses Spatially Balanced Sampling to maximize spatial independence among sample locations, ensuring that every sample is distributed across the population. In short, we’re collecting litter data across all permissible areas within each city and creating a clear picture of each city’s unique litter fingerprint. We will be conducting litter surveys across 300 areas with the help of at least 10 researchers in each city. 

In order to account for seasonal variations, litter observations will be conducted during four quarters to allow us to measure two aspects of litter in each study area:

  • Litter Composition: The general makeup of litter observed by our researchers.

  • Litter Density: A measurement of litter per square meter in each study area.

 For more information about the project please visit our City Fingerprint Project page, and stay tuned for more updates! 

 

If you have any questions about the program, please contact research@litterati.org