With no scientific training, and no clue about cartography, you can help map stuff for science. Lately the opportunities to lend a lay-hand with research seem to be everywhere, and more and more of them involve a mapping component.

This year the results of several citizen-aided science projects hit the news. In May, the researchers behind the Evolutionary Map of the Universe, a project to create a census of galaxies, announced that two Russian citizen scientists had discovered a new cluster of galaxies. In Spain, scientists released a preliminary oral-microbiome map based on participation of more than 4,000 Spanish teens.

The idea of asking the masses for help with science has been around a long time. For some research,