Learning Through Citizen Science Enhancing Opportunities by Design (2018) / Chapter Skim
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2 Mapping the Landscape
2 Mapping the Landscape
Pages 27-52
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From page 27... ...
The fact that all citizen science includes participation in some form of science activity and thinking means that all citizen science projects have the potential to advance science learning. The range of citizen science opportunities also means that these possibilities vary by the project, and are influenced by the goals, participants, and modes of participation of the project.
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The notion of "gentleman" science, where people with privilege and means engaged in science and science activities as hobbyists, recalls citizen science. Officially, however, the field of citizen science emerged in reaction to the formal institution of science as a mechanism for engaging the public: A central tenet of citizen science is that science is not the sole providence of professional scientists.
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. In the following section, we discuss the history of defining and characterizing citizen science in order to set the stage for our description of the diversity of citizen science projects and types of participation in citizen science.
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, a digital image data storage platform that houses more than 2,000 citizen science projects centered on crowdsourcing both image collection and subsequent species identification. In working to define citizen science (within a youth-focused context but applying it more generally)
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divides citizen science projects involving technology into "volunteered computing" or projects using the computer resources of millions of individuals across the globe to process otherwise intractable problems without any direct interaction with the owner; "participatory sensing" in which the smart phone or other personal data-recording device is automatically used to collect environmental information with, or without additional direct input of the owner; and "volunteered thinking" or projects where the participant is trained to perform some task (e.g., image classification or analysis as in Zooniverse; Masters et al., 2016)
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Thinking about the way in which citizen science projects are constructed, the activities of the participants, and their different levels of engagement all help understand the learning that occurs in citizen science and how to design to influence learning. In the following section, the committee attempts to illuminate the complex landscape of citizen science activities by describing how projects may be similar or different across a range of axes.
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. Citizen Science Projects Engage Participants with Data Projects collect data in myriad forms and, in turn, may provide access to these data to support science learning opportunities and activities.
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Professional scientists involved as participants may be working outside their professional role or field of study and may be motivated by personal concerns rather than career interests. Citizen Science Projects Help Advance Science Here, advancing science is broadly defined.
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In summary, citizen science projects tend to actively engage participants, engage participants with data, use a systematic approach to producing reliable knowledge, engage participants that are primarily not project-relevant scientists, help advance science, offer some kind of benefit to participants, and communicate results. 2 In some cases, especially for youth, participants might join a citizen project because it is part of a formal or informal educational experience (e.g., Girl Scouts)
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Because of the regular meeting structure of formal educational contexts such as science classes, citizen science activities that can be conducted within these spaces may provide even more opportunities for repeated, sustained engagement with learners. Many citizen science projects effectively support a mix of one-time and repeated participation, as many participants drop out after a short time (Sauerman and Franzoni, 2015)
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distinguishes among "volunteers," "citizens," and "amateurs." These studies collectively suggest that citizen science provides opportunities for a range of different kinds of participants, from social individuals to those less interested in ongoing social interaction, and from individuals who sample widely to those who dive deeply into a single pursuit. Modes of Communication Although communication of project results is a common trait of citizen science (as described in the preceding section)
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. In-person citizen science projects refer to those in which all participant-involved activities (usually training and data collection)
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. Citizen science projects centered in a specific geographic or ethnographic community may encourage learning about particular interactions between science and society within that context.
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However, many classes take their participation to the next level by making contributions to citizen science projects when they not only collect data according to a prescribed protocol but also go on to share their data with a common project database. The use of these activities, whether fully participating in the common feature of contributing knowledge to a larger project or not, represents one way that the practices of citizen science can influence science education, so it is one of the ways the committee investigated learning from citizen science in this report.
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For the purposes of the report, the committee is not considering projects that focus entirely on science communication or science-based decision making, as citizen science, and so we did not investigate science learning in those projects. Summary The preceding section describes variation across types of citizen science projects, all of which must be considered when project designers are making choices about how to set up and implement their projects.
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Pocock and colleagues (2017) scored 509 environ mental or ecological citizen science projects on 32 attributes and found a broad distribution of methodological approaches to data collection.
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Participants as Stakeholder/Partner Some citizen science projects involve partnerships between the science community and nonscientists whose goals either instrumentally involve science or overlap with those of scientists. For example, the Nature's Notebook project, run by the USA National Phenology Network, engages groups who have instrumental needs for phenology data or findings.
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CONSIDERING THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF CITIZEN SCIENCE In order to fully understand how citizen science can support science learning, it is essential to consider who has access to citizen science, especially in terms of groups that have been historically underrepresented in science. For this reason, the committee devoted considerable time and energy, including a review of participation literature (see Appendix A)
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As we will discuss in Chapter 7, designing in ways that remove barriers connected to assumptions about physical ability, economic resources, linguistic ability, and neurodiversity is design that respects every individual's right to choose to engage in citizen science or science. Summary The preceding sections have detailed the substantial differences and similarities across the range of citizen science projects and types of participation in citizen science.
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This is reflective of the state of research and practice in the field of citizen science: We know of no analysis that either looked at learning outcome explicitly in terms of the nature of the scientific question asked, nor have we seen a typology of learning in citizen science based on scientific question. Yet, as we will see in subsequent chapters on learning outcomes and design, there is strong evidence that the nature of scientific learning is influenced by the kind of question or investigation asked, and the questions asked are often part of the explicit or implicit design process.
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, 289. Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network.
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. The "citizens" in citizen science projects: Educational and conceptual issues.
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. Science learning via participation in online citizen science. Journal of Science Communication, Special Issue: Citizen Science, Part II, (15)
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, e37. Reef Environmental Education Foundation.
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Pre sentation at the Citizen Science Toolkit Conference, June 20-23, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/conference/ toolkitconference/proceeding-pdfs/Full%20Proceedings.pdf {December 2018]
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