Citizen science (CS) involves individuals who are not professional scientists in scientific endeavors, typically in collaboration with or supervised by professional scientists or scientific institutions. There are hundreds of CS projects, many of which have the potential to engage elementary school students in collecting, analyzing, and making sense of data to answer authentic scientific questions. CS projects can also engage students with nature, inspire their curiosity and their interest in STEM, and support students’ connections between formal science education and authentic science experiences of data collection in the natural world. School-based CS can broaden participation in STEM by making science instruction more inquiry based and more activity oriented, both of which engage students who might not otherwise flourish in science. However, CS projects typically do not include substantial guidance or supports for teachers who want to implement the projects for instructional purposes, and this places a heavy burden on teachers who want to use them. The goal of our study, Teacher Learning for Citizen Science (TL4CS) is to generate knowledge about (1) the types of teacher learning that enable CS to fulfill its potential for student learning and engagement with nature, and (2) the types of supports that promote such teacher learning. The video will give an overview of the project and our work to date. This work has focused on developing teacher supports for two CS projects: the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (or CoCoRaHS) and the Lost Ladybug project.
Science, Citizen Science, Research / Evaluation
NC State Univ, NC Museum of Nat Sci
Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12)
Related Content for Teacher Learning for Citizen Science
Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (32 posts)
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 10, 2021 | 07:21 p.m.
Thank you for visiting our TL4CS video! Because we are early in our work, we wanted to share our project goals, process thus far, and proposed outcomes with you. Our team welcomes feedback and would like to pose the following questions to researchers, curriculum developers, and teachers:
Researchers: We’re doing design-based implementation research (DBIR). As we move from initial development into the first phase of research on the materials, what would you recommend we be alert to?
Curriculum Developers: With citizen science projects in mind, what do you see as the highest priorities for teacher support?
Teachers: What have been your successes and obstacles implementing citizen science projects with your students?
Thanks for sharing this video. How is your team thinking about the creation of supports that can span citizen science projects that may differ in terms of content?
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 11, 2021 | 05:19 p.m.
Hi Troy. Thanks a lot for your question. It touches on something that we think about a lot as we create supports that are, in fact, mostly project specific. Some of the supports will undoubtedly transfer to other projects. For example, our amazing development team has created protocols for helping teachers do science on the school grounds with their students. Other supports won't transfer, but we are constantly trying to think about the underlying principles and processes that will transfer. Part of our development process involves specifying opportunities for student to engage with data they're collecting and then identifying what types of supports are most important. We think that process, which we will document for other developers, will transfer well along with others. I hope that helps. Thanks again for your question.
Great project that provides a needed bridge between citizen science and elementary school science. I'm looking forward to seeing your teacher learning findings.
1
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Jill Rhoden
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 11, 2021 | 10:32 a.m.
Dear Pat, thank you for watching our video and for your words of support.
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 11, 2021 | 05:22 p.m.
Thank you, Pat. I like the metaphor of a bridge. That's exactly what we're hoping our materials will do. We're trying to be mindful of the considerable assets that both the teachers and the citizen science projects bring to the work and use those as we build our supports.
Folashade Solomon
Facilitator Senior Researcher
May 11, 2021 | 12:54 p.m.
There is such an opportunity to engage young learners in science by helping teachers access Citizen Science formats in more supportive ways. As a teacher educator, I would love to hear what you find to help prep future teachers to engage more with citizen science.
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 11, 2021 | 02:43 p.m.
Thank you Folashade for watching our video. As we launch our project we too are eager to find which of our supports will best serve the teachers in our project. As we plan our supports for teachers and are getting feedback from our Teacher Advisory Group, we recognize that on thing they appreciate is the connections to standards. This helps the teachers see that citizen science is not an addition to their teaching demands, but that it helps them meet their existing instructional goals.
1
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Folashade Solomon
Paul Domenico
K-12 Administrator
May 14, 2021 | 01:45 p.m.
Hi, Sarah.
I've been engaged in building Citizen Science with our elementary and middle schools. I was wondering if this project has any connections with the NSF Students Discover grant spearheaded by Rob Dunn. I'm definitely interested in the outcomes here and implications for improving integrated science opportunities for our elementary students.
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 14, 2021 | 01:55 p.m.
Paul, thank you for watching our video. We are not connected with the Students Discover grant but we are certainly aware of Rob's work and recognize our common goals of engaging non-professional scientists in authentic science teaching and learning.
Jessica Hunt
Associate Professor, Mathematics Education and Special Education
May 11, 2021 | 03:12 p.m.
What a wonderful project that addresses an important intersection between citizen science and teacher implementation. I appreciate that you have a teacher advisory board to think with you through this project and look forward to hearing about what you learn as you move from development into research.
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 11, 2021 | 05:27 p.m.
Jessica, we are so glad we included teacher advisors in our project. They have been immensely helpful already. This summer, we will meet with them to review and revise the materials we've developed before we shift into pilot mode. Although our development team has a lot of experience teaching elementary school and working with elementary teachers, having a group of teachers that can tell us how are materials are working with their students is going to be so important.
2
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Wow! Such cool work and important work. It sounds like by participating in TL4CS, teachers will have opportunities to experience specific projects and collect materials that will support them in teaching their elementary students on their own school grounds, all while incorporating the standards. I know that the NC Museum of Natural Science is a partner that is working on this, my question is are there materials being developed to support conceptual investigations at the museum as well?
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 16, 2021 | 10:37 a.m.
Jonee, thank you for watching our video and for your question. I really enjoyed your video as well! Our materials are for teachers and schools in hopes of reaching the diverse populations for students in school settings. Chris Goforth, has brought her citizen science experiences in her work at the museum's Prairie Ridge Ecostation to our project. Her expertise incorporating citizen science in her work at the NCMNS has guided our learning more about citizen science and planning rich experiences for our teacher participants. Thanks again for watching.
Jamie Bell
Facilitator Project Director
May 12, 2021 | 07:26 a.m.
Thank you for this video. This project clearly has lots of potential for knowledge building on how a citizen science approach works in schools. Thanks also for clearly articulating the research questions and methodology for addressing them. The use of established projects like CoCoRaHS and Lost Ladybug seems smart. Can you say more about the role of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences?
This is such a cool project! Thank you for sharing your work! I would love for my own children and for all elementary students to experience these learning opportunities. I also commend you for having a Teacher Advisory Group. Sean, you asked about what to be alert to as you move into first phase of research on the materials. I would want to know how teachers perceive the materials and how they fit into what they are/were already doing. I would also want to know the teachers' perceived obstacles/constraints (as well as successes) they have encountered. It seems the systems-level perspective would be important, too -- how principals, STEM leaders, and other district leaders value citizen science and thereby likely influence the implementation of the materials through the decisions that are made (e.g., scheduling, policies, school and district level competing initiatives). I am so excited to follow your progress. Great work!
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 12, 2021 | 01:58 p.m.
Temple, thank you very much for this advice. We will plan to gather this information from our TAG members as they pilot the materials next year. Next year's video should include what we learned. Thanks again!
Patrick and team thank you for a great video that clearly illustrates the main goals and methods for the TL4CS project. There are several aspects of TL4CS that resonate with our work at UNH, including exploring methods to support elementary teachers' science instruction and their ability to integrate established citizen science platforms in meaningful ways that support students' learning goals.
I am particularly interested in your 3rd research question related to impacts on students' attitudes about science and nature. What instruments or methods will your team use to measure teachers' impact on students' attitudes toward 'nature and science'? Will you be measuring what teachers' report about their students or asking students to complete a survey, etc.?
Thanks for sharing this project, especially so early in your process!
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 12, 2021 | 02:17 p.m.
Lara, thank your for your question (and your great video!). We are still narrowing down the instruments we'll use, but right now, the frontrunner for attitudes toward nature is this one:
Cheng, J. C.-H., & Monroe, M. C. (2012). Connection to nature: Children’s affective attitude toward nature. Environment and Behavior, 44(1), 31–49. For attitudes toward science, we're looking at measures from the Activation Lab.
If you have other suggestions, we would be grateful for them. We will also be doing case studies of teachers and will include questions about their students' attitudes when we interview the teachers.
1
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Lara Gengarelly
Richard Duschl
Researcher
May 14, 2021 | 11:07 a.m.
Sarah and Patrick,
Important R&D, looking forward to learning more about the program and your research. We are embarking on a multi-year effort here at SMU with opening preK-8 STEM school in the West Dallas community - WDSS. In planning phase now and for the last two years, soft opening of grades 7&8 in August and the build out from the bottom grades up. So let's keep in touch!
2
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Shane Woods
Rita Hagevik
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 14, 2021 | 11:29 a.m.
Rick, thank you for looking at our video and letting us know about the new school you're opening. It sounds great. I hope what we're developing would be very appealing to a STEM school with elementary grades. We see so many opportunities to integrate all the core subjects through citizen science projects.
(Patrick) Sean Smith
Sarah Carrier
Researcher
May 14, 2021 | 12:39 p.m.
Rick, your new STEM school sounds like it will be a great addition for the West Dallas community. We appreciate your looking at our work. We have a special team, and we are excited about the opportunities to support teachers and their students. Let's do keep in touch.
We are using citizen science projects with teachers too - including elementary school. We are doing the native bee home project, the great sunflower project, the great pumpkin project, and bumblebee watch.
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 14, 2021 | 01:51 p.m.
Rita, these projects all sound so relevant and I look forward to learning about them. Thank you for watching our video. Your work on supporting STEM careers is important work too.
1
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Rita Hagevik
Jamie Bell
Facilitator Project Director
May 14, 2021 | 01:54 p.m.
Patrick and Sarah, great to hear that you are finding the Science Learning Activation Lab measures useful, as they are the result of many years of hard, thoughtful work. As an informal STEM educator I'm further interested in how NCMNS is involved the project.
1
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Rita Hagevik
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 14, 2021 | 02:00 p.m.
Jamie, our team member, Chris Goforth, has shared her citizen science experience to our project. Her expertise incorporating citizen science in her work at the NCMNS has guided our learning more about citizen science and planning rich experiences for our teacher participants.
1
Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available
It wasn't until the start of this STEM for All Showcase that teacher support materials for CitSci projects really came into the spotlight for me (unforgivable as I'm a former educator myself). Now, as the Research Coordinator for an online citizen science project I'm realizing how crucial this is for STEM equity, encouragement, and even just to continue driving usage of our platform!
No questions, just a "thank you" for sharing your project and helping to reinforce this eye-opening moment for me.
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 15, 2021 | 06:10 a.m.
Thank you, Saira. We were fortunate enough to be involved for several years in a project that worked with teachers on integrating citizen science projects into their instruction. Seeing their successes and challenges shaped our thinking about the factors that shaped teachers' experience. We shared some of our thinking in this article:
Hayes, M. L., Smith, P. S., & Midden, R. M. (2020). Students as citizen scientists: It’s elementary. Science and Children, 57(9), 60–64.
We also wrote a white paper documenting the experience from the perspective of scientists involved in the project:
Esch, R. K., Burbacher, E., Dodrill, E., Fussell, K. D., Magdich, M., Norris, H., & Midden, W. R. (2020). Citizen science in schools: Scientists’ perspectives on promise and pitfalls. Horizon Research, Inc.
In TL4CS, we're focusing exclusively on developing supports for teachers. We look forward to sharing what we learn. Thank you very much for your interest.
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 14, 2021 | 04:21 p.m.
Saira, thank you for your supportive post. We appreciate your watching our video and we share your excitement for the potential of citizen science and your recognition of the importance of STEM equity and encouragement.
Shane Woods
Facilitator Senior Director, STEM Center of Excellence
May 15, 2021 | 03:55 p.m.
I enjoyed seeing elementary teachers doing science. As a former K-12 science administrator, I know first hand about the battle of making science a priority. How are you able to help your teachers see the value of making citizen science a part of the school day?
Sarah Carrier
Co-Presenter Associate Professor, Science Education
May 16, 2021 | 10:32 a.m.
Shane, thank you for watching our video. We are still in the development phase of our work and have a teacher advisory group helping us prepare for our coming work with more teachers. In order to meet our goals for teachers to include citizen science in their school days, we are developing supports that align with their existing science standards for 5th grade. We agree with you that helping teachers to prioritize science is an important goal. We look forward to sharing more about our work. We appreciate your important question.
1
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Shane Woods
Patrick Smith
Lead Presenter President
May 17, 2021 | 06:47 a.m.
Hi Shane. To piggyback on what Sarah wrote, we're also trying to highlight the connections between citizen science and other core subjects. We hope teachers will see that citizen science is a way to accomplish multiple goals. Thank you for interest in our project!
1
Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available
Patrick Smith
President
Thank you for visiting our TL4CS video! Because we are early in our work, we wanted to share our project goals, process thus far, and proposed outcomes with you. Our team welcomes feedback and would like to pose the following questions to researchers, curriculum developers, and teachers:
Researchers: We’re doing design-based implementation research (DBIR). As we move from initial development into the first phase of research on the materials, what would you recommend we be alert to?
Curriculum Developers: With citizen science projects in mind, what do you see as the highest priorities for teacher support?
Teachers: What have been your successes and obstacles implementing citizen science projects with your students?
Troy Sadler
Thanks for sharing this video. How is your team thinking about the creation of supports that can span citizen science projects that may differ in terms of content?
Patrick Smith
President
Hi Troy. Thanks a lot for your question. It touches on something that we think about a lot as we create supports that are, in fact, mostly project specific. Some of the supports will undoubtedly transfer to other projects. For example, our amazing development team has created protocols for helping teachers do science on the school grounds with their students. Other supports won't transfer, but we are constantly trying to think about the underlying principles and processes that will transfer. Part of our development process involves specifying opportunities for student to engage with data they're collecting and then identifying what types of supports are most important. We think that process, which we will document for other developers, will transfer well along with others. I hope that helps. Thanks again for your question.
Pat Friedrichsen
Great project that provides a needed bridge between citizen science and elementary school science. I'm looking forward to seeing your teacher learning findings.
Jill Rhoden
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Dear Pat, thank you for watching our video and for your words of support.
Patrick Smith
President
Thank you, Pat. I like the metaphor of a bridge. That's exactly what we're hoping our materials will do. We're trying to be mindful of the considerable assets that both the teachers and the citizen science projects bring to the work and use those as we build our supports.
Folashade Solomon
Senior Researcher
There is such an opportunity to engage young learners in science by helping teachers access Citizen Science formats in more supportive ways. As a teacher educator, I would love to hear what you find to help prep future teachers to engage more with citizen science.
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Thank you Folashade for watching our video. As we launch our project we too are eager to find which of our supports will best serve the teachers in our project. As we plan our supports for teachers and are getting feedback from our Teacher Advisory Group, we recognize that on thing they appreciate is the connections to standards. This helps the teachers see that citizen science is not an addition to their teaching demands, but that it helps them meet their existing instructional goals.
Folashade Solomon
Paul Domenico
Hi, Sarah.
I've been engaged in building Citizen Science with our elementary and middle schools. I was wondering if this project has any connections with the NSF Students Discover grant spearheaded by Rob Dunn. I'm definitely interested in the outcomes here and implications for improving integrated science opportunities for our elementary students.
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Paul, thank you for watching our video. We are not connected with the Students Discover grant but we are certainly aware of Rob's work and recognize our common goals of engaging non-professional scientists in authentic science teaching and learning.
Jessica Hunt
What a wonderful project that addresses an important intersection between citizen science and teacher implementation. I appreciate that you have a teacher advisory board to think with you through this project and look forward to hearing about what you learn as you move from development into research.
Patrick Smith
President
Jessica, we are so glad we included teacher advisors in our project. They have been immensely helpful already. This summer, we will meet with them to review and revise the materials we've developed before we shift into pilot mode. Although our development team has a lot of experience teaching elementary school and working with elementary teachers, having a group of teachers that can tell us how are materials are working with their students is going to be so important.
Jessica Hunt
Shane Woods
Jonee Wilson
Wow! Such cool work and important work. It sounds like by participating in TL4CS, teachers will have opportunities to experience specific projects and collect materials that will support them in teaching their elementary students on their own school grounds, all while incorporating the standards. I know that the NC Museum of Natural Science is a partner that is working on this, my question is are there materials being developed to support conceptual investigations at the museum as well?
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Jonee, thank you for watching our video and for your question. I really enjoyed your video as well! Our materials are for teachers and schools in hopes of reaching the diverse populations for students in school settings. Chris Goforth, has brought her citizen science experiences in her work at the museum's Prairie Ridge Ecostation to our project. Her expertise incorporating citizen science in her work at the NCMNS has guided our learning more about citizen science and planning rich experiences for our teacher participants. Thanks again for watching.
Jamie Bell
Project Director
Thank you for this video. This project clearly has lots of potential for knowledge building on how a citizen science approach works in schools. Thanks also for clearly articulating the research questions and methodology for addressing them. The use of established projects like CoCoRaHS and Lost Ladybug seems smart. Can you say more about the role of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences?
Temple Walkowiak
This is such a cool project! Thank you for sharing your work! I would love for my own children and for all elementary students to experience these learning opportunities. I also commend you for having a Teacher Advisory Group. Sean, you asked about what to be alert to as you move into first phase of research on the materials. I would want to know how teachers perceive the materials and how they fit into what they are/were already doing. I would also want to know the teachers' perceived obstacles/constraints (as well as successes) they have encountered. It seems the systems-level perspective would be important, too -- how principals, STEM leaders, and other district leaders value citizen science and thereby likely influence the implementation of the materials through the decisions that are made (e.g., scheduling, policies, school and district level competing initiatives). I am so excited to follow your progress. Great work!
Patrick Smith
President
Temple, thank you very much for this advice. We will plan to gather this information from our TAG members as they pilot the materials next year. Next year's video should include what we learned. Thanks again!
Lara Gengarelly
Patrick and team thank you for a great video that clearly illustrates the main goals and methods for the TL4CS project. There are several aspects of TL4CS that resonate with our work at UNH, including exploring methods to support elementary teachers' science instruction and their ability to integrate established citizen science platforms in meaningful ways that support students' learning goals.
I am particularly interested in your 3rd research question related to impacts on students' attitudes about science and nature. What instruments or methods will your team use to measure teachers' impact on students' attitudes toward 'nature and science'? Will you be measuring what teachers' report about their students or asking students to complete a survey, etc.?
Thanks for sharing this project, especially so early in your process!
Patrick Smith
President
Lara, thank your for your question (and your great video!). We are still narrowing down the instruments we'll use, but right now, the frontrunner for attitudes toward nature is this one:
Cheng, J. C.-H., & Monroe, M. C. (2012). Connection to nature: Children’s affective attitude toward nature. Environment and Behavior, 44(1), 31–49. For attitudes toward science, we're looking at measures from the Activation Lab.If you have other suggestions, we would be grateful for them. We will also be doing case studies of teachers and will include questions about their students' attitudes when we interview the teachers.
Lara Gengarelly
Richard Duschl
Sarah and Patrick,
Important R&D, looking forward to learning more about the program and your research. We are embarking on a multi-year effort here at SMU with opening preK-8 STEM school in the West Dallas community - WDSS. In planning phase now and for the last two years, soft opening of grades 7&8 in August and the build out from the bottom grades up. So let's keep in touch!
Shane Woods
Rita Hagevik
Patrick Smith
President
Rick, thank you for looking at our video and letting us know about the new school you're opening. It sounds great. I hope what we're developing would be very appealing to a STEM school with elementary grades. We see so many opportunities to integrate all the core subjects through citizen science projects.
(Patrick) Sean Smith
Sarah Carrier
Rick, your new STEM school sounds like it will be a great addition for the West Dallas community. We appreciate your looking at our work. We have a special team, and we are excited about the opportunities to support teachers and their students. Let's do keep in touch.
Rita Hagevik
We are using citizen science projects with teachers too - including elementary school. We are doing the native bee home project, the great sunflower project, the great pumpkin project, and bumblebee watch.
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Rita, these projects all sound so relevant and I look forward to learning about them. Thank you for watching our video. Your work on supporting STEM careers is important work too.
Rita Hagevik
Jamie Bell
Project Director
Patrick and Sarah, great to hear that you are finding the Science Learning Activation Lab measures useful, as they are the result of many years of hard, thoughtful work. As an informal STEM educator I'm further interested in how NCMNS is involved the project.
Rita Hagevik
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Jamie, our team member, Chris Goforth, has shared her citizen science experience to our project. Her expertise incorporating citizen science in her work at the NCMNS has guided our learning more about citizen science and planning rich experiences for our teacher participants.
Jamie Bell
Saira Mortier
It wasn't until the start of this STEM for All Showcase that teacher support materials for CitSci projects really came into the spotlight for me (unforgivable as I'm a former educator myself). Now, as the Research Coordinator for an online citizen science project I'm realizing how crucial this is for STEM equity, encouragement, and even just to continue driving usage of our platform!
No questions, just a "thank you" for sharing your project and helping to reinforce this eye-opening moment for me.
Patrick Smith
President
Thank you, Saira. We were fortunate enough to be involved for several years in a project that worked with teachers on integrating citizen science projects into their instruction. Seeing their successes and challenges shaped our thinking about the factors that shaped teachers' experience. We shared some of our thinking in this article:
Hayes, M. L., Smith, P. S., & Midden, R. M. (2020). Students as citizen scientists: It’s elementary. Science and Children, 57(9), 60–64.
We also wrote a white paper documenting the experience from the perspective of scientists involved in the project:
Esch, R. K., Burbacher, E., Dodrill, E., Fussell, K. D., Magdich, M., Norris, H., & Midden, W. R. (2020). Citizen science in schools: Scientists’ perspectives on promise and pitfalls. Horizon Research, Inc.
In TL4CS, we're focusing exclusively on developing supports for teachers. We look forward to sharing what we learn. Thank you very much for your interest.
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Saira, thank you for your supportive post. We appreciate your watching our video and we share your excitement for the potential of citizen science and your recognition of the importance of STEM equity and encouragement.
Shane Woods
Senior Director, STEM Center of Excellence
I enjoyed seeing elementary teachers doing science. As a former K-12 science administrator, I know first hand about the battle of making science a priority. How are you able to help your teachers see the value of making citizen science a part of the school day?
Sarah Carrier
Associate Professor, Science Education
Shane, thank you for watching our video. We are still in the development phase of our work and have a teacher advisory group helping us prepare for our coming work with more teachers. In order to meet our goals for teachers to include citizen science in their school days, we are developing supports that align with their existing science standards for 5th grade. We agree with you that helping teachers to prioritize science is an important goal. We look forward to sharing more about our work. We appreciate your important question.
Shane Woods
Patrick Smith
President
Hi Shane. To piggyback on what Sarah wrote, we're also trying to highlight the connections between citizen science and other core subjects. We hope teachers will see that citizen science is a way to accomplish multiple goals. Thank you for interest in our project!
Shane Woods
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.