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Volunteer Series, Part One: The Power of Community Science
ADVOCACY AND MOVEMENT BUILDING
Photo credit: 30 Mile River Watershed Association
Maine is home to about 6,000 lakes and ponds, and these vital freshwater resources offer residents and visitors space to explore, play, work, and connect with the state’s rich environment.
Across the state, nonprofit organizations work tirelessly to protect and increase access to these resources. And their work wouldn’t be entirely possible without the support from citizen scientists, community members who are trained to collect critical data about the health of our natural environment.
Community scientists bolster the efforts of professional scientists, supporting conservation initiatives and helping organizations better understand our lakes and how people use them. They’re essential to scientific inquiry and analysis, and they strengthen the organizations who partner with these volunteers.
Benefits of Community Science
Whether they have a deep background in environmental science or are simply passionate about the natural world around them, community scientists play a critical role in conservation. Organizations train these volunteers to actively contribute to the collection, and sometimes analysis, of key data.
For lake-protection efforts, this means completing a variety of tasks, depending on the organization with which the citizen scientists volunteer, including:
- Patrolling and surveying lakes for invasive plants
- Monitoring water quality
- Collecting data about when a lake freezes over in the winter and begins to melt in the spring
- Tracking wildlife that live near, live on, or utilize a lake
With support from trainers and professional scientists who often verify the community’s work, these volunteers enable more expansive data analysis and help local and state lake associations keep Maine’s lakes healthy.
In fact, research shows that community science helps drive better conservation outcomes overall. One study found that empowered citizen scientists support “social-ecological system transformation” and help expand local stewardship of environmental resources. According to a 2020 study, participating in community science helps motivate citizens to care about conservation efforts even beyond their initial volunteer work.
Other research shows that citizen science not only offers personal and communal benefits, but also helps democratize science and promote equitable access to data about our natural world. In Maine, this kind of citizen engagement is a vehicle for effectively collecting data, connecting communities, and growing collective stewardship of our freshwater resources.
Three Lake Organizations Mobilizing Community Scientists
Given the importance of community scientists to larger scientific endeavors, we’re proud to offer grant funding and technical assistance to several environmental nonprofits that partner with volunteers to advance their work. Here’s a look at three of those organizations.
1. Lake Stewards of Maine
Within the state’s lake-protection sector, Lake Stewards of Maine (LSM) is key: It’s the only organization contracted by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to conduct workshops on aquatic invasive species identification and water quality monitoring. Centralizing training through LSM ensures the high quality and consistency of training and data collection procedures.
LSM’s work is far-reaching, including citizens, aquatic ecology professionals, and regional conservation organizations from nearly every county in the state. In 2024 alone, the organization trained:
- 400 people through in-person workshops
- 264 people through webinars
- 120 invasive plant patrollers through 14 in-person trainings
- 75 new water quality monitors
- 165 recertified water quality monitors
“A large majority of the people who volunteer are those who love their lake,” says Christine Guerette, LSM’s Programs Manager. “They learn about potential dangers to their lake, and they’re motivated to do something about it. That passion connects all our volunteers.”
Brett Willard, Aquatic Invasive Species Program Director, notes that because volunteers are the “first line” of protection, LSM is always expanding its volunteer network. “We’re actively trying to reach out to new groups of people who are interested in plants and ecology to find a new audience.”
The organization’s Invasive Plant Patrol Travel Team is part of that expansion effort. The Travel Team helps ensure under-resourced lakes with few volunteer patrollers get the attention they deserve. “Our travel team is mobilizing volunteers from all across Maine to come to new lakes and provide screening surveys and mentorship to local volunteers,” Guerette says.
LSM’s role in Maine’s larger conservation efforts is vital, but it’s the organization’s vast network of volunteers that truly makes a difference. As Willard says, “The level of cooperation between LSM, the DEP, other regional conservation organizations, our volunteers — there’s nothing else like it in New England.”
“We couldn’t do this work without regional and travel volunteers. They’re so dedicated. They drive themselves and spend their own money to help us support local communities. They’re one of the most important tools we have.”
— Brett Willard, Aquatic Invasive Species Program Director, Lake Stewards of Maine
2. 30 Mile River Watershed Association
Established as a nonprofit organization in 2008, 30 Mile River Watershed Association has since grown to become a collaboration of eight lake associations, seven rural towns, and two land trusts. It’s a public-private collective that engages more than 150 volunteers annually to keep the more than 20 lakes and ponds under its purview clean and healthy.
According to Program Leader and Field Technician Silas Mohlar, the past two years have been the organization’s biggest in terms of volunteer numbers, volunteer hours, and lakes monitored, particularly for its Water Quality Monitoring Program.
Volunteers are trained through LSM to collect data on dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and water temperature, all at designated stations within their lake. They then pass the data along to Mohlar and his team, who scribe the data, enter it into a database, and send any water samples to the DEP for further analysis.
For the 30 Mile team, every volunteer matters. “Certified volunteers collect the actual data, while other volunteers might take us out on their boat. Every piece of that work is helpful to us,” says Mohlar.
The work is part of larger collective action, says Lidie Robbins, Executive Director. “Whether it’s maintaining property, advocating at the town level, or engaging with bills that come up in the legislature, we need a big community effort in all this work,” says Robbins. To foster this effort, the 30 Mile team is working to engage more volunteers, even hosting workshops with LSM to make it easier for people in different regions to get certified.
Robbins reports that many community scientists go on to become donors, join the 30 Mile board, or become ambassadors for the work, expanding conservation engagement even further. In this way, volunteers are supporting statewide environmental work through volunteering. “None of our work can happen without volunteers,” says Mohlar. “The more volunteers we can recruit, the more work we can do. They’re vital for our work.”
“As a retired geologist, water-quality monitoring is both educational and fun. I no longer just look at the lake as a pretty body of water that I want to protect, but rather I feel like I can see how it breathes and hear its heartbeat."
— Ken Tillman, certified water quality monitoring volunteer, 30 Mile River Watershed Association
3. Lakes Environmental Association
In 2003, a massive oil spill occurred in Buzzards Bay, devastating much of the loon population in that area. In partnership with Maine Audubon, Lakes Environmental Association (LEA) developed the Maine Loon Restoration Project to restore loon populations and protect them from future harm. To advance this work, the LEA team works with Maine Lakes, the Penobscot Nation, and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to educate lake users about loons, train volunteers to monitor the birds, and build rafts to help loon pairs produce chicks.
“Rafts can help prevent nest loss due to high water fluctuation or excessive boat wake, predation from land animals, or disturbance from humans and animals,” says Maggie Welch, LEA’s Staff Limnologist. “In those cases, we provide a raft to volunteers who, in return, care for the raft and monitor the loon pair near the raft.”
In partnership with Maine Lakes, LEA also established the Look Out for Loons program, which trains volunteers across Maine to reach out to their communities to raise awareness of loon protection and help reduce human disturbance.
In past years, Maine Audubon’s annual loon count provided the majority of loon population data for the state. “The Maine Loon Restoration Project has expanded on that work to include population numbers throughout the loon’s breeding season,” says Welch. “That offers us a more detailed understanding of how these populations are changing.”
The citizen scientists who monitor loon nests and facilitate population growth are the foundation for this work, helping Maine’s environment thrive. In fact, loon monitoring often serves as a gateway to other community science initiatives, with volunteers becoming ambassadors for their lake and overall lake protection. Seeing loon populations thrive often inspires volunteers to consider other ways they could help advance conservation efforts and keep Maine lakes healthy for all.