On exploiting acoustic sensing and citizen science in a game for biodiversity monitoring and awareness

Over the years, humans have heavily contributed to environmental degradation. Because of that, nature conservation efforts and environmental monitoring are increasingly important, especially activities able to engage the general public to contribute to the cause. These initiatives fall under the citizen science paradigm and are heavily dependent on the public support. During our research, we found that the combination of game design with citizen science projects boosts user participation, resulting in the project overall success. With this in mind, we devised an approach that combines citizen science with a gameful experience via bioacoustic sensing, in order to create a game with the purpose (GWAP) with the final goal to classify animal sounds in a given area. Through different game modes and game mechanics, we support the analyses of historical and recent data, by the players, in the close proximity of the location or from a distance, through enjoyable and educational game experience. Finally, we did a preliminary evaluation of the designed mobile application. Participants enjoyed the game, with a majority stating that they would like to play the released version of this game in the future.