In this recorded professional learning session, Greta Dromgool from the Science Learning Hub and Sarah Morgan, the Project Manager for SouthSci, South Auckland's Participatory Science Platform, unpack what citizen science might look like at your school.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Participant
The number of opportunities to be involved as citizen scientists continues to grow. How are teachers using them to make science education more relevant and engaging? What potential do they have for supporting school science, and how can they be used to develop students’ science capabilities?
We introduce you to a range of citizen science projects and, using real-life New Zealand examples, show how schools are making the most of the exciting opportunities out there. Want to give it a go but not sure where to start? This recorded session is a great start for you!
You can download the video and slideshow presentation.
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Teacher
Index
| Topic | Slideshow number(s ) | Video timecode |
| Introducing the Science Learning Hub and presenters | 1–4 | 00:00 |
| Index | 5 | 03:17 |
| Purpose | 6 | 03:29 |
| What is citizen science? | 7–12 | 03:47 |
| Participant experiences | 13 | 09:19 |
| Why bother?, Science capabilities | 14–19 | 10:41 |
| Connecting with scientists | 20–21 | 14:43 |
| Citizen science projects | 22–27 | 15:25 |
| Participatory science and longer-term projects | 28–31 | 18:29 |
| Tips for designing a project | 32–33 | 26:07 |
| SLH links, keep in touch and thanks | 34 | 32:13 |
We encourage you to join our discussion about citizen science by registering in our online forum Slack. In this forum, we discuss ideas and share resources.
Nature of science
Scientific investigations involve the collection of relevant data. Citizen scientists contribute to investigations by acting as many sets of eyes with which to make observations and record data. Scientists then use their expertise to make sense of the information collected. Even children can be scientists, provided they follow scientific procedures.
Being part of a citizen science project and acknowledging students’ contribution as part of a bigger research process is a great way of building students’ competence in participating and contributing and individuals’ confidence in learning.
More on citizen science
This is the first of two webinars looking at citizen science. In the next webinar we speak with Prime Minister’s Science Teacher Prize winner Carol Brieseman, who shared her experiences using online citizen science projects in the classroom. The recording of this webinar is available here.
The number of opportunities to be involved as citizen scientists continues to grow, and teachers are increasingly using them to make science education more relevant and engaging and to develop students’ science capabilities. Find out what being a citizen scientist means in this article and learn how year 4 students learned to be citizen scientists while learning about butterflies in this teacher PLD.
The webinar mentions a range of projects – explore these and more in the Citizen science section on the Science Learning Hub. Find one that sparks an interest and see these tips for planning your science programme.
The Hub also has articles, activities and other PLD under the citizen science topic.
Useful links
Discover more about the Participatory Science Platform by exploring the Curious Minds website or visit the many stories on the Science Learning Hub.
Check out the large collection of citizen science resources that we have curated in this Pinterest board.
