Abstract
Taking Note: Citizen Science to Science Learning, Colleen Hitchcock, Brandeis University, USA (Slides here) – primary duties are teaching, and part of environmental studies group. Before graduate school, worked in the Audubon society so was familiar with it before her PhD. Citizen science was natural to engage students with environmental issues. Integrating citizen science into the curriculum can be a shift from a closed education perspective to open science perspective. An outside research lab is very locked in terms of the time of engagement (only when they are with the teacher) and what they are expected to do. In citizen science students can engage more openly – they can also work with other groups and communities. Bringing citizen science to the classroom is making the democratisation of science as the norm, open science happens alongside open education, and the science and is reaching out beyond the university – an open education way. By embedding citizen science we can create a culture where students are questions about the science. By doing citizen science it is possible to support students regardless of the specific topic of their studies. For example, in an iNaturalist ID-a-thon in the campus library. Other people were allowed to join and that opened up the process. Started including citizen science in every course she teaches, and that allow students to do research, increase awareness of scientific contribution and understand that outputs extend beyond the university – it’s experiential and service learning. Focus on biology and ecology. While a lot of the students won’t have a degree in science, it’s valuable to introduce them to the idea that they have a place in it regardless. Through the assignments, the students are both learning about citizen science and about doing citizen science, and also facilitate citizen science -bioblitz or city nature challenge. Classes can be big – 100 students and they start with the question – understand what is citizen science, and participate in a project, usually online in a contributory project. They provide evidence for this (screenshot) and that forms the basis for class discussion. Citizen science can complement course content – eg. biology and climate change is done through a campus phenology project that is linked to NPN, as well as explicitly using citizen science literature as the text for the course (instead of other literature). Students are exposed to citizen science in multiple pathways and won’t question data quality as a barrier. Old pictures of the campus can be compared and people can see the changes in seasonal cycles that already happened. Students learn about data and evidence and complete with a big climate change puzzle of putting all the information together. Finally, citizen science is used for professional development and mentorship and used to increase skills: research, science communication, education, and outreach. Interdisciplinary students are learning about linking issues of communication, environmental justice. Linking to outside organisations can be challenging. There are issues of problems of data that is evaluated by peers, by external citizen scientists – that is changing over the semester. Students are asked to reflect on their progress an see their own evolution. There is an opportunity to collaborate with other students, and understanding the value of the contribution to external communities. So an event “‘Deis does Citizen Science” provided a link to a virtual citizen science project on the basis of camera traps, and the students organised an event of “data sprint” where it was in the library, and then people moved to help in the project – 50 people attended the event, of which 25 participated in class and they were inventive in creating motivation – e.g. registering the activity as community contribution time. A survey of students after the course – beyond the course (3 and 5 years later): they have an understanding of citizen science, but there were also concerns about inclusivity and democratisation, but feel that it is a valuable tool. Some students seeing the value of engaging children, and someone thinks about it and their future family within their work. Relationships with the library are important, and in other areas, people are adopting it – e.g. using Galaxy Zoo in physics class. Librarians also organise digital humanities digitising with regular lunchtime meetings.