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Within the broader context of civic media, a number of environmental sensing technologies and practices are emerging that seek to enable citizens to use DIY and low-tech monitoring tools to understand and act upon environmental problems. Such “citizen sensing” projects intend to democratize the collection and use of environmental sensor data in order to facilitate expanded citizen engagement in environmental issues. But how effective are these practices of citizen sensing not just in providing “crowdsourced” data sets, but also in giving rise to new modes of environmental awareness and practice?

The Citizen Sense project investigates the relationship between technologies and practices of environmental sensing and citizen engagement. 1 Environmental sensors, which are an increasing part of digital communication infrastructures, are commonly deployed for monitoring within scientific study, as well as in urban and industrial applications. 2 Practices of monitoring and sensing environments—or citizen sensing—have migrated to a number of everyday participatory applications, where users of smart phones and networked devices are able to undertake environmental observation and data collection. While environmental citizenship and citizen science are established areas of research, citizen sensing is an environmental practice that has not yet been analyzed in detail—although many claims are made about the capacities of digital monitoring technologies to enhance and enable democratic participation in environmental science and politics.