The turnout for this year's March for Science was expected to be lower than last year's, Wired reports, but organizers note some supporters are focusing now on local elections.
At the San Diego for Science march, organizer Navid Zohoury said the march this year was more about voter registration and getting people to realize how science affects their lives, NBC San Diego reports.
"Last year it was a reaction. This year it's more determined," Bill Kennedy from George Mason University tells Buzzfeed News.
Wired adds that Shaughnessy Naughton, the director of the group 314 Action, wasn't planning to be at either the Washington, DC, march or the one in Philadelphia where she lives. Instead, Wired writes that she has been focusing on encouraging scientists to become involved in politics and run for office, and that her group has so far endorsed about 50 scientist-candidates. "Part of what we wanted to see from the march last year was to take the anger and energy and excitement and put it to work in their local communities," Naughton tells Wired.
Science reports that supporters at the marches still had energy, despite the lower turnout. As with last year, marchers held a number of funny signs, like one captured by Buzzfeed News that read: "No Science, No Beer."