“Don’t step on the volcanoes!” – Developing Environmental Science Agency through participation in Museum-Led Citizen Science Projects

Lorke, Julia; Ballard, Heidi L.; Aristeidou, Maria; Herodotou, Christothea; Ghadiri, Maryam; Swanson, Rebecca D. and Robinson, Lucy D. (2019). “Don’t step on the volcanoes!” – Developing Environmental Science Agency through participation in Museum-Led Citizen Science Projects. In: The beauty and pleasure of understanding: engaging with contemporary challenges through science education (Proceeding of ESERA 2019), 26-30 Aug 2019, Bologna, Italy.

Abstract

As an international researcher-practitioner partnership, we study learning through participation in natural history museum-led citizen and community science (CCS) programmes for young people aged 5-19 years in three different settings: 1) long-term monitoring projects, 2) short-term events e.g., BioBlitz, and 3) online or mobile-enabled crowdsourcing projects. Using learning analytics (N = 219) and field observations (N = 120) we characterised youth participation and design features in CCS programmes, captured the development of Environmental Science Agency, and identified features in programmes that foster or hinder young people from using learning opportunities. Our results point out differences in constraints and affordances across settings and suggest design implications, e.g., facilitator training, scaffolding processes in online communities, supporting guardians in their interactions with kids in CCS activities.

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