The raise of Fablabs and other maker spaces is creating new opportunities for citizen-driven innovation in domains ranging from open hardware to digital fabrication, community informatics, and participatory sensing.

In the past five years, the broad availability of open hardware tools, the creation of online data sharing platforms, and access to maker spaces have fostered the design of low-cost and open-source sensors that citizens can appropriate to engage in environmental action. By collectively measuring and making sense of their environment, citizens can become aware of how their lifestyle affects the ecosystem and be inspired to adopt more sustainable behaviour.

Official bodies typically measure environmental qualities with sparse networks of high quality sensors, and the resulting data are analysed to inform policy and regulations. At the same time, with the exception of extreme cases like smog pollution, citizens tend to be unaware of the health threats that they are subjected to on a daily basis.

Moreover, they lack the means to act on their own behalf. By encouraging and enabling the creation of bottom-up sensor networks, and sharing the resulting data and knowledge, the EU-funded project Making Sense aimed to add to the available data and understanding, and contribute to a healthier and cleaner environment.

Toolkit

Making Sense showed how open-source software, open-source hardware, digital maker practices and open design can be used by local communities to make sense of their environments. It developed a Citizen Sensing toolkit for bottom-up citizen science.

Amsterdam pilots

  1. Urban Airq
  2. Smart Kids Lab
  3. Making sense of gamma radiation

Based on these pilots, we developed a framework for participatory environmental maker practices. It shows how to provide citizens and communities with tools to enhance their everyday environmental awareness, to enable active intervention in their surroundings, and to change their individual and collective practices.

Stakeholders and funding

Making Sense ran from November 2015 to the end of 2017. The consortium consisted of Waag (Lead partner - Netherlands), University of Dundee (UK), Peer Educators Network and Science for Change (Kosovo), Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia – IAAC (Spain), and the EU Joint Research Centre (Belgium).

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25
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Smart Citizens Lab

Premiere documentary: a Citizen Science Revolution

8
Mar
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Smart Citizens Lab: citizen science crash course

20
Dec
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Smart Citizens Lab workshop #3: measuring air quality during fireworks

14
Nov
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Workshop citizen science

24
Sept
2017
25
Sept
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Workshop 'Citizen Data and Official Statistics'

1
Jul
2017
11:00
17:00
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Making Sense @ SPARK Makers event

23
Jun
2017
13:30
Smart Citizens Lab

reSITE 2017: In/visible City

19
May
2017
09:00
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Workshop measuring radiation #3 Maastricht

12
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Citizen science, making sense

3
May
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Smart Citizen Talks #6: Young agents of change

2
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Turn your laptop into a nuclear sensor!

21
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Workshop measuring radiation #2 Eindhoven

29
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18:30
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Smart Citizen Talks #5: Measuring the environment

17
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10:30
12:30
Smart Citizens Lab

Workshop measuring radiation #1 Bergen op Zoom

18
Jan
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19:30
Smart Citizens Lab

Smart Citizen Talks #4: The i-City

19
Dec
2016
19:30
Smart Citizens Lab

Smart Citizen Talks #3: Lessons from smart Amsterdam

7
Dec
2016
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Symposium 'Measuring air quality'

2
Dec
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11:00
13:00
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ThingsCon Smart Citizen workshop

1
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Smart Citizens in Smarter Cities

22
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Waag @ Dutch Design Week 2016

12
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20
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6
Oct
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08:00
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Nordic Edge

20
Aug
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Basement Festival Sao Paulo

8
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Thingscon Salon #4 Eindhoven

22
Jun
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Crash Course #3: water quality

21
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2016
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Crash Course #2: noise pollution

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Crash Course #1: air quality

30
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Smart Citizen Talks #2: kickstart smart

27
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Making Sense of the City @ #CPEU4

22
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Making Sense: Advances and Explorations in Participatory Sensing

21
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Smart Citizen Talks #1: Making Sense of the smart city

7
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Amsterdam Smart Citizens Lab 2016 MeetUp #1

30
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Urban AirQ kick-off