Citizen Science Vaisigano

Introducing our web-responsive app, [𝘃𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗼.𝗼𝗿𝗴], which was coded and designed for the Project focusing on the Vaisigano river system.

As a prototype, we initiated its testing in the field yesterday. The student volunteers added their first set of collected data from the site visit.

You can visit 𝘃𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗼.𝗼𝗿𝗴 to read the new data entries and create your account to contribute!

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The Übersee-Museum team members have also been holding meetings and workshops with The National University of Samoa staff, along with the programme work, to create new collaborations and knowledge exchange.

Our teams receiving the warmest welcome with cultural ceremonies at the The National University of Samoa campus.

Our team members from Germany, Samoa, the Netherlands, and India have been meeting online for the past 6 months and have even met in person at the Übersee-Museum to put together this programme.

We have attended meetings at sunrise and even at midnight to accommodate each other's time zones. Rarely missed, the meetings were filled with laughter, occasional yawns, and bad jokes. However, the discussions always left us with a sense of accomplishment as we progressed towards our physical site visits with the team in Samoa.
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We are excited to introduce the programme, which began last week in Samoa. The programme is being run by an international team that includes members from Übersee-Museum in Germany and The National University of Samoa (NUS).

The programme is now officially titled "𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗭𝗘𝗡 𝗦𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗩𝗔𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗔𝗡𝗢 / 𝗦𝗨'𝗘𝗦𝗨'𝗘𝗚𝗔 𝗙𝗔𝗔𝗦𝗔𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗜 𝗠𝗢 𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗨'𝗨".

Focussing on the Vaisigano river, the programme aims to garner public interest in studying river health and collecting scientific data for monitoring through the help of volunteers over extended periods of time.

In the pilot, we have the opportunity to work with 20 students from NUS who are participating in two site visits. They will learn to conduct the scientific studies with experts from the museum while also engaging in art workshops to express their connection and relationships with the river.

The teams are working together in these two weeks, to exchange knowledge and create new plans for continuing the data collection through students and academic assignments.

We will be sharing a lot more in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!