在美国大约3000种蚊子中，只有两种能够携带寨卡病毒，但是，美国疾病控制和预防中心（U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention）表示，对这两种蚊子的活动范围尚缺少确切了解。

然而，科学家们现在可以借助塑料杯、棕色擦手纸和生物课青少年学生的帮助，增进对这些讨厌但不容忽视的蚊虫的认识。

美国全国各地中学生正在通过参加美国农业部的”侵袭性蚊子项目”（Invasive Mosquito Project），增加对蚊子数量及分布的了解，填补知识空白。

试验简单，课题复杂

学生们的试验步骤如下：首先，他们把纸平铺在塑料杯里，在杯中放大约三分之二的水。然后，把杯子放在户外，一个星期后，杯中的纸上好像布满了小泥点。但这些小泥点其实是蚊子卵。学生们由此学会辨认和区别不同类型的蚊子。

接下来，学生们将他们的观察结果上载到一个全国性的以众筹方式运作的数据库（crowdsourced database）。这种方式借助网上社群的集体知识信息，在大范围内“传播”解决问题的办法。

负责协调这个项目的美国农业部昆虫专家里·科恩斯塔特（Lee Cohnstaedt），现已在考虑扩大这种做法。他希望让全美国五分之一的学校参与这项蚊子普查活动。他还准备提供适合中学生、童子军和种植俱乐部的授课方案。

他对美联社（Associate Press）说，通过众筹方法已经“收集到比我们独自做更好的数据”。(英文)

寨卡病毒目前主要活跃在美洲地区，已经发现它与造成小头症等严重胎儿脑畸形有关（英文）。

除跟踪蚊子项目外，众筹方法还被用来调动为许多复杂的问题寻找有创意的解决方案，包括在气候变化，考古，蛋白模建（英文）等领域。

Teenage scientists enlisted to fight Zika

A mosquito’s a mosquito, right? Not when it comes to Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.

Only two of the estimated 3,000 species of mosquitoes are capable of carrying the Zika virus in the United States, but estimates of their precise range remain hazy, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scientists could start getting better information about these pesky, but important, insects with the help of plastic cups, brown paper towels and teenage biology students.

As part of the Invasive Mosquito Project from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, secondary-school students nationwide are learning about mosquito populations and helping fill the knowledge gaps.

Simple experiment, complex problem

The experiment works like this: First, students line the cups with paper, then fill two-thirds of the cups with water. Students place the plastic cups outside, and after a week, the paper is dotted with what looks like specks of dirt. These dirt particles are actually mosquito eggs, which the students can identify and classify.

Students then upload their findings to a national crowdsourced database. Crowdsourcing uses the collective intelligence of online communities to “distribute” problem solving across a massive network.

Entomologist Lee Cohnstaedt of the U.S. Department of Agriculture coordinates the program, and he’s already thinking about expansion. He said he hopes to have one-fifth of U.S. schools participate in the mosquito species census. He also plans to adapt lesson plans for middle schools, Scouting troops and gardening clubs.

Already, crowdsourcing has “collected better data than we could have working alone,” he told the Associated Press.

Zika is active mostly in the Americas and has been linked to severe fetal brain defects such as microcephaly.

In addition to mosquito tracking, crowdsourcing has been used to develop innovative responses to a number of complex challenges, from climate change to archaeology to protein modeling.