Shake it out for Science is a Citizen Science project collaboration between the Australian Federal Police, ChemCentre and Curtin University.
In this project, citizen scientists will be trained to shake and collect debris from clothing items, then collect the debris or "shakings" using a technique that is employed by forensic experts across Australia. The shakings will then be sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory at ChemCentre, where they will be examined for trace evidence - specifically glass fragments. Citizen Scientists will also need to complete an online questionnaire for each shaking sample submitted.
The aim of Shake it out for Science is for the data collected to provide an estimation of background levels of broken glass in the population.
As this is the pilot program we are limiting the number of participants in 2022, however once the pilot results are in we will use this model to kick off the national project in 2023!