Teaching Sequence

10 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
40 minutes – Part B. What is Citizen Science?
10 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Preparation: Print out and cut up the Prior Knowledge Questions, ensuring you have one question for each student.

Step 1. Distribute the questions to the class, giving each student one question. Invite students to walk around the room and interview other students using their question. Each pair that meets should take it in turns to ask their questions and record each other’s answers. Encourage students to record answers in their workbooks.

Step 2. Once students have interviewed at least three other students, invite the class to come together and share some of the answers they recorded.

Use the information below to clarify students' understanding on these questions:

Science can be described as knowledge about the natural and physical world. This knowledge is based on facts learned through experiments and observation. Science could also be described as an area of study that deals with the natural world (such as biology, physics or ecology).
A scientist is someone who studies or who has expert knowledge of at least one of the natural or physical sciences.
Scientists work to deepen our understanding of the natural world. They make observations and measurements within the field they work in, and communicate their findings to other scientists and to the broader community.
There are many different ways that scientists work to help biodiversity, including (but not limited to):
- Biologists study life and living organisms
- Conservation scientists work to look after the land in a way that balances the needs of our environment with the needs of people (such as through farming or forestry).
- Soil and plant scientists study the ways soils affect plant growth
- Hydrologists study the water supply and how water interacts with the natural world
- Atmospheric scientists study the climate, weather and earths atmosphere and how these interact with the biosphere

Part B. What is Citizen Science?

Step 1. As a class, invite students to respond to the following question:

Can anyone be a scientist?

Extend student answers by asking “What makes you say that?” to each student response.

Through your discussion explain to students that professional scientists are typically required to complete a certain amount of study. When they are scientists they are required to conduct research and to publish their findings.

Now, invite students to respond to the following question:

What is citizen science?

Through your discussion lead students to the idea that citizen science is scientific work and data collection undertaken by the general public. This work is usually overseen by professional scientists who devise the work, collaborate with the public and provide guidance.

Step 2. Explain to students that there are a range of citizen science projects around the world and in Australia. Many involve observing and recording aspects of biodiversity, such as birds, frogs, mammals, weeds and feral animal species.

Some examples of Australian citizen scientist projects include:

Explain to students that they will be working in groups to investigate these projects so that they can better understand what citizen science is and why it is important. Name each student in the class as a 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four' or 'five'. Invite students to form groups of five (each group should be made up of a 'one', a 'two’, a ‘three’, a 'four' and a 'five'). Ask students to remember their number (they can write it on the back of their worksheet, if they like), as it will be used later in the lesson. Assign each group to one of the citizen science projects listed above. Each group needs to research this citizen science project and assess it according to the following questions (links to citizen science projects and questions also available on the Student Worksheet):

What is the name of this project?
What is this project about?
What aspect of science does this project aim to help?
How are citizen scientists able to contribute to this project? What tasks are they required to do?
How do the project organisers measure the success of this project (e.g. by sightings, participants, species identified etc.)?
What is the most interesting part of this project?
Would you get involved in this project? Why or why not?
How does this project compare to Earthwatch's ClimateWatch program? What are the similarities and differences between ClimateWatch and the project you are investigating?

Invite groups to research and discuss the answers to these questions. However, each student is responsible for completing their own set of answers to all of these questions.

Step 3. Once students have had enough time to research and discuss their answers about the project they are investigating, explain that students will now be forming new groups and share their learning. You could coordinate student movement by asking them to form new groups where each group has a 'one', a 'two', a 'three', a 'four' and a 'five'. Invite students to take turns to recount their initial group's discussion with their new group. Ensure that the new concepts are learned in a self-guided manner by encouraging students to take their own notes about all the citizen science projects and to ask clarifying questions about these projects and the ideas being shared.

Step 4. Once complete, begin a class discussion inviting students to share their thoughts about the citizen science projects they researched. Consider the following points in your discussion:

In what ways are these projects similar?
In what ways are they different?
Which projects would you be most interested in participating in and why?
How are these projects similar or different to Earthwatch's ClimateWatch project?
Why do you think citizen science projects are becoming increasingly popular and important? - Through your discussion, ensure that students understand that the idea that citizen science projects can benefit both the scientific community and the broader community: scientists gain access to data they may not have the time or money to access otherwise; and the community are given the opportunity to contribute both to the work of science and to the broader community that they are part of.
What might be the risks of citizen science and how could these be addressed? - Through your discussion lead students to the idea that in some projects people might feel compelled to ‘fudge’ the data a little to provide better numbers (e.g. recording species that you haven’t seen on a particular day because you have seen them there in the past, or saying you saw more than you did).

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Thinking about what you looked at in this lesson:

What was new to you?
What did you find interesting or important?
What would you like to know more about?
How would you describe citizen science to someone who had never heard of it before?

Take It Further

Consider participating in a citizen project that the class investigated.

Teacher Reflection

Note: Cool Australia and Earthwatch have also create citizen science units of work for maths and geography. To enhance students' learning, consider teaming up with teachers in these complementary faculties to run a cross-curricular project on phenology and citizen science.

Citizen Science - What is Citizen Science?

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