K12 students as reliable and trustworthy groundwater monitors in Missoula, Montana.

Citizen scientists, which includes K-12 students, is defined as the general public participation of nonscientists in the collection and analysis of data to be used by professionals in scientific research. More citizen science programs are starting to arise to monitor surface water in rivers and lakes, however there are fewer programs that monitor groundwater due to not being able to access monitoring wells. The data being collected by K-12 students must be evaluated for trustworthiness and reliability. This study analyzed the accuracy between K-12 students’ groundwater level data compared to data collected by professional organizations at the same wells. Two comparisons were completed with one well located in Greenough Park in Missoula, Montana, while the second well comparison is located at Gilcrest Elementary in Gilcrest, Colorado. The study showed that K-12 students’ data had similar results to the data collected by professionals. Other studies on this topic have shown that youth citizen science programs need to be carefully trained on how to use the testing kits and collect data. The results from evaluating the trustworthiness of K-12 students will be used to help support the feasibility study for creating a K-12 groundwater monitoring program within Missoula, Montana.