From citizen science to citizen action: analysing the potential for a digital platform to cultivate attachments to nature

Identifying private gardens in the U.K. as key sites of environmental
engagement, we look at how a longer-term online citizen science
programme facilitated the development of new and personal attachments
of nature. These were visible through new or renewed interest in
wildlife-friendly gardening practices and attitudinal shifts in a large
proportion of its participants. Qualitative and quantitative data, collected
via interviews, focus groups, surveys and logging of user behaviours,
revealed that cultivating a fascination with species identification was key to
both ‘helping nature’ and wider learning, with the programme creating a
space where scientific and non-scientific knowledge could co-exist and
reinforce one another.