Citizen science - public participation in scientific research - will be explored at next week's Cafe Scientifique.
A common form of citizen science is where community volunteers use standard methods to collect data to measure changes occurring in their local environment.
University of Waikato PhD student Monica Peters' research centres on the hundreds of community environmental groups throughout New Zealand - mostly made up of volunteers - whose work is dedicated to restoring the environment.
"As well as building a more complete picture of these groups and their projects, I am also investigating how they measure the success of their restoration activities," Ms Peters said.
"This is 'grassroots' citizen science because most group members who carry out the science-based monitoring do not have formal science training.