Social Media Toolkit
Why One Million Acts of Science?
One Million Acts of Science is more than just a goal—it’s a movement to showcase the collective power of people contributing to scientific discovery. While SciStarter connects people to projects year-round, during Citizen Science Month each April, SciStarter and our partners rally individuals, educators, organizations, and communities to take action by engaging in meaningful scientific activities. These Acts of Science, whether they involve collecting data, analyzing images, or attending events, highlight how small contributions add up to major scientific advancements. By reaching one million acts, we demonstrate the incredible impact of public participation in research and inspire even more people to get involved. Every act counts—so why not make yours part of the movement?
Purpose
This social media toolkit is designed to empower individuals, organizations, and communities to spread awareness and inspire participation in citizen science. By providing ready-to-use graphics, sample posts, hashtags, and engagement strategies, this toolkit makes it easy to share the excitement of contributing to real scientific research.
Our goal is to showcase the collective impact of public participation in science, encourage diverse audiences to take action, and help reach one million meaningful contributions during Citizen Science Month.
Whether you’re a project scientist, a facilitator or educator, a federal agency, an organization, or an enthusiastic citizen scientist, your voice can help mobilize a movement—because every act of science counts! Use this toolkit to spark conversations, mobilize participants, and celebrate the power of citizen science.
How You Can Help
Spread the word to your communities:
- Publish our press release with your local news outlets
- Print and display posters and signs, or share our postcard and flyer designs, to communicate how people can participate and make an impact
- Use our project leader email template to inform your volunteers about your Citizen Science Month participation, keeping them engaged and inspired to take action.
Amplify our messages on social media:
- Share our Citizen Science Month promo post (Find it here on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X) from your accounts!
- Follow @SciStarter on Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and TikTok (@SciStarter.org) and share our content; be sure to use the #OneMillionActsofScience hashtag!
- Consider following our Citizen Science Month Organizing Partners:
- Keep the energy alive by sharing our 40-second motivational reel from our social accounts or download it here.
Inspire and engage your networks on social media:
- Add the #OneMillionActsofScience hashtag to all your social media posts, and engage with us via your personal or organizational accounts.
- Announce your support and partnership with our custom partner graphic template on canva.
- Use our below suggested social media captions or develop your own customized posts to share out the content
- Capture photos at your events showcasing citizen science in action to help others visualize participation and get inspired to join. Be sure to use the #OneMillionActsofScience hashtag and tag us @SciStarter!
- For Instagram: adding partners (like @SciStarter) as “collaborators” tends to consistently amplify engagement. When you send a “collaborator request” to another user, and they accept it, the post or reel will appear on both your profile and theirs. Adding collaborators is done during the post creation process.
- Use our Giphy stickers on Instagram posts: 1) Create the story or reel you want to post, 2) Select the “stickers” icon located on the top menu, 3) Type “SciStarter” into the search bar and select from one of the available CitSciMonth Stickers:
Always include #OneMillionActsofScience
Use additional existing hashtags about related topics to support more visibility: #CitizenScienceMonth, #CitizenScience, #ParticipatoryScience, #CommunityScience #STEM, #scienceiscool, #scienceprojects, #astronomy, #space, #scicomm, #research, #libraries, and hashtags related to your topic/project or institution
Suggested Social Media Graphics for Posts
We offer a variety of free graphics to help you promote One Million Acts of Science! Browse our SmugMug gallery for images of citizen science in action, or explore our public Google Drive folder for ready-to-use social media graphics. We even have a custom partner graphic template on canva to help organizations announce their participation. Use these visuals to bring your posts to life and inspire more people to participate!
Suggested Social Media Captions
Sample text for recruiting volunteers:
We’ve partnered with @SciStarter and hundreds of other #CitizenScience projects to encourage our volunteers to join a global effort to log #OneMillionActsofScience this April! Don’t miss out! Learn about [project name] and how you can impact [scientific research aim]! Learn more at citizensciencemonth.org [or insert your project link]
Join us in the global effort to collect #OneMillionActsOfScience during the month of April. Learn how and celebrate with us at OneMillionActsofScience.org
Join us to be part of #OneMillionActsofScience during April. You can [describe task] to help us [describe objective]. Sign up: [project link].
Join us and @SciStarter this #CitSciMonth in #OneMillionActsOfScience
Who: Thousands of people
What: 1,000,000 Acts of Science in 1 month
Where: Anywhere in the world!
When: April 2024
Why: Support researchers in gathering and analyzing data to make a difference
Learn more at citizensciencemonth.org [or insert your organization link]
Sample text for promoting programs or goals:
[Insert Institution] is presenting a FREE event open to anyone interested in learning how to turn curiosity into action through the global effort to collect #OneMillionActsOfScience. Join us to explore [insert theme or focus of event]. Learn more at [event link].
Join [insert institution or “us”] on [date] as we rally to hit our community goal of [choose a #] [“classifications” or “analyses”, etc] towards [project] as part of #OneMillionActsOfScience with our partner @SciStarter. [End with instructions to join]
Join [project] on [date] as we rally to hit our goal of [#][classifications/analyses/contributions/etc] towards [topic/research goal] as part of #OneMillionActsOfScience with our partner @SciStarter. Get started at [name and link to your project].
We’re aiming for [# Acts of Science or some other motivator] this April as part the #OneMillionActsofScience effort this #CitizenScienceMonth! Join us [on a date, other brief instruction] to [“meet the team,” “make an impact,” etc]. Start here: [link to project or event]”
Sample text for celebrating April participation:
Amazing! [institution] and friends added [#] Acts of Science by [describe activity] as part of #OneMillionActsOfScience! There’s still time to do more: https://citizensciencemonth.org [or organization page link]
Our community of participants in [Name of project] added [total #] of Acts of Science to the collective goal of #OneMillionActsOfScience this month! Well done, team! There’s still time to get involved at citizensciencemonth.org
One Million Acts of Science Logo
Use our logo in all promotional materials from social media posts to print media to webpages. (Click, hold-down or right-click on the images below to save to your desktop or smartphone. Otherwise, download logos from our public folder on google drive.)
Questions? Please contact Emma@SciStarter.org
