Establishing a long‐term citizen science project? Lessons learned from the Community Lake Ice Collaboration spanning over 30 yr and 1000 lakes

Abstract

Recruiting the public to participate in the scientific process can be invaluable in furthering our understanding of global environmental change. Several long‐term citizen science projects have been active for over a decade, with most involving the public in the data collection phase of the scientific process. Our team has recently inherited a long‐term citizen science project called the Community Lake Ice Collaboration (CLIC). We have benefited from engaging with a community of experienced participants who have collected reliable data for hundreds of lakes across the USA for over 30 yr. Collecting data at this scale would have been logistically and financially challenging without participants volunteering their time and effort. Here, we aim to provide an overview of the lessons we have learned from CLIC and other citizen science projects and develop nine guidelines for establishing and sustaining a long‐term citizen science project.