Every April, NCEI celebrates Citizen Science month, which is dedicated to celebrating the public’s participation in scientific discovery and research. Whether it be by using NOAA’s CrowdMag application to gather geomagnetic data on a smartphone or crowdsourcing weather reports using mPING, there are several ways to join in on Citizen Science month fun.
This year, NCEI is pleased to collaborate with Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) by featuring their FathomVerse mobile game, which just launched their latest version on March 26. FathomVerse uses ocean data and imagery stewarded by NCEI/NOAA to create a hands-on, accessible approach to everyday ocean exploration.
What is FathomVerse?
FathomVerse is a free mobile game that invites everyone with a smartphone or tablet to contribute to science. By playing productive mini-games and interacting with stunning ocean imagery, gamers can partner with researchers to identify ocean animals while training AI.
Why play FathomVerse?
Most of ocean life is still unknown to science, and FathomVerse was created to help fill the knowledge gap while engaging the public ocean researchers and scientists. AI is used to capture ocean images and analyze them, but relies on people to continuously train and verify the models. Every time someone interacts with the FathomVerse game, the machine learning models are trained and improved upon.
How does FathomVerse work?
FathomVerse aims to increase our capacity to measure and monitor marine life in a changing ocean. The game offers an interactive community science experience where players engage with scientific images collected by robots and researchers around the world. Every experience in FathomVerse is filled with imagery that researchers, government agencies, and coastal communities collected with imaging systems and shared with us.
With advances in imaging and AI technology, we can capture images of the ocean and quickly analyze them. By interacting with the game, players help train the AI that researchers use to find and identify animals in real ocean imagery. In doing so, you’ll hone your skills and learn how to identify nearly 50 groups of ocean animals.
By tapping into our collective curiosity, FathomVerse seeks to transform ocean exploration by engaging a community of passionate ocean enthusiasts to work alongside researchers.
