Everybody is a Scientist!

"Children can both learn from and contribute to citizen science. Scientific learning can develop children’s environmental citizenship, voices and democratic participation as adults (Makuch 2018)."

To create a culture of participating in science-related activities, your class will be undertaking a number of citizen science projects with my students each year. “Citizen science projects actively involve citizens in scientific endeavour that generates new knowledge or understanding” and are defined as “…hav[ing] a genuine science outcome (Robinson 2018).” Some of my student’s projects will be unique to a particular group of students, but other assignments will be repeated year-to-year.

The goal is to build science capital

“[S]cience capital points to the iterative relationship between people’s dispositions towards science, participation in science-related activities and science-related outcomes, including learning.” It is the idea that the more a student “is part of a culture of participation in science-related activities, the more one is likely to develop science learning outcomes and the disposition to participate further in science-related activities (Hecker et al 2018)."

All the Data...

All the data on this page was generated by dedicated, industrious, creative, and inspiring students just like yourself. If you have a project idea that is NOT listed on this page but that you would like to try, just ask! The best science is the type that answers the questions you are interested in. If you think you need ideas visit the following sites:

Science Association (CSA)

European Citizen Science Association (ECSA)

Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA)

Sci Starter

Oaks Bottom

pH

Salinity

Oxygen Saturation

Sea Star Counts

The best projects are the one you come up with on your own. But it should be a vaguely biology related. Got an idea? Come talk to me. I love to hear about student ideas. We can figure out if it will fit the assignment requirements and timeline.