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Developing Students' Understanding of the Nature of Science via Citizen-Science Educational Projects

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Dina Tsybulsky and Yuval Perez Halachmi

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Citizen Science

Silvertown, 2009; Bonney et. al 2009

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What is citizen science?

Citizen Science is a research genre that connects scientists and nonscientists around authentic scientific projects.

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Example: Galaxy Zoo

Real scientific problem: How are galaxies formed?

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Problem: It takes billions of years, so you can’t watch it.

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“Astronomers have spent many decades measuring basic galaxy properties such as age, mass or dustiness that may give us some clues as to how they formed and evolved and what precisely the connection between spiral and elliptical galaxies is. However, most studies of galaxies so far have only looked at a few dozen or hundred galaxies in the nearby universe and many aspects of galaxy formation and evolution are still a mystery.”

Astronomy:

Citizens classify Galaxies

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Biology:

  • Collection of bacteria samples from different places
  • Discovering possible protein structures
  • Annotating cell images of Huntington's Disease patients

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Plethora of environment & Ecology related projects

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Levels of public participation

  • Inter project (Bonney et al., 2009)
    • Contributory (data collection)
    • Collaborative (data collection + analysis/interpretation)
    • Co-created (all aspects)
  • Intra-project (Haklay, 2013)
    • Crowdsourcing (provides resources)
    • Distributed intelligence (provides cognitive ability)
    • Community Science (defines the problem)
    • Extreme Citizen Science (full collaboration with scientists)

Goals and execution methods

  • Wiggins and Crowston (2011)
    • Action (solve local problems)
    • Conservation (natural resources planning and management)
    • Investigation (scientific research with physical data collection)
    • Virtual ( scientific research with virtual participation)
    • Education (main objective is education)

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Citizen science classification examples

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Crowdsourcing technology

News

Funding

Maps

Why is citizen science more relevant than ever?

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Abundance and accessibility of data

Why is citizen science more relevant than ever?

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Technology is everywhere - mobile devices, AR, VR, 3D-printers with DIY knowledge, IoTs, etc.

Why is citizen science more relevant than ever?

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Why citizen science?

Science

Society

Citizen Science

Individu-als

(Raddick et al., 2009; Shirk et al., 2012)

    • Help in research
    • Rich data collection
    • New scientific findings
    • Influencing policies and decision making
    • Community building
    • Public engagement in science
    • Acquiring new skills and knowledge
    • Understanding scientific processes
    • Pleasure and sense of achievement

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Why citizen science in school?

  • Authentic and meaningful learning experience

Science

Society

Citizen Science

Individu-als

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Traditional Silos

  • Educational researchers and practitioners
  • Formal and informal learning
  • Science and data literacies
  • Classrooms and out-of-classrooms
  • Physical and online spaces

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Meaningful Learning

Blurring boundaries between

traditional silos

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Practice - building a community

Blurring boundaries: Scientists, educators, policy makers and more

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Nature of Science

Dagher & Erduran, 2014; Irzik & Nola, 2011

Epistemic-cognitive aspects

  • What is a scientific theory?
  • What is a scientific model?
  • Which evidences are acceptable in science?

Institutional-social aspects

  • How does society influence science?
  • What is a scientific consensus?
  • What is the role of peer review?

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Teaching of NOS

Explicit approach

Reflective approach

Contextualized approach

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Authenticity

Modelling the entirety of the scientific practices engaged in by professionals

    • From the development of a question to reporting the results

Authentic scientific context

    • Laboratory, field, etc.

Authenticity of the findings

    • Genuine contributions to scientific knowledge

Criteria

Edmondson, Burgin, Tsybulsky & Maeng, 2020

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Authenticity of Citizen Science

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Citizen Science

Authenticity Criteria

Modellng the entirety of the scientific practices engaged in by scientists (from the development of a question to the reporting of results)

Authentic Context (laboratory, field, etc.)

Authenticity of Findings (genuine contributions to scientific knowledge)

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Yes or Partial

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Yes

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Yes

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The goal was to examine the impact that students’ participation in citizen science projects had on their understanding of the NOS.

Research goal

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Research context

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Research participants

The footsteps of small mammals

The dolphins’ voices

The irises project

Approximately 400 students in grades 4-10 participated in the study

Contributory project

Collaborative project

Co-created project

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  • The research tools used were pre- and post-questionnaires
  • The data then were used for quantitative analysis using statistical tests (e.g., Wilcoxon Two-Sample analysis, Kruskal Wallis test)

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Methods

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  • The results indicate a significant improvement in students’ NOS understanding, which shifted from naïve conceptions to a more informed understanding in most of the examined NOS aspects.
  • Our analysis revealed three variables that may impact the differences in the change of understanding among students:
  • -type of NOS teaching (explicit/implicit)
  • -type of CS project (contributory/collaborative/co-created)
  • -type of inquiry (structured/guided/open)

Results

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The model for the development and implementation of educational CS projects

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Thanks!

dinatsy@technion.ac.il

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https://biologygroup.net.technion.ac.il/