Role of Schools in Citizen Science
There were three or four main concerns, and one or two solutions.
1. Primary and secondary education, especially in Singapore, has fairly stringent curricular constraints, which leads to time constraints. Finding the time in the context of a set curriculum to do citizen science with primary and secondary school students was a challenge that all workshop participants mentioned.
2. The education system in Singapore, especially, relies heavily on testing, and as a consequence of grade-based evaluations, participants were concerned that citizen science would detract from rather than enhance education in the eyes of parents. That is, while participants thought citizen science might be seen as “relaxing” the general feeling was that outside people in particular might not think of it as enhancing education.
3. There was a general concern of coordinating among enough schools to make the citizen science project legitimate science, vs. just a group of class project.
4. Many participants in the workshop thought that students at that level might lack the sophistication or interest to be reliable citizen scientists..
A few possible solutions came up.
1. Many schools require participation in Community Involvement Programs (CIP), which may have changed names. These are typically aimed at service-oriented projects, e.g., working with the elderly. Participants thought that environmental- or conservation-based citizen science projects might fit into this category and students could participate that way.
2. Several people outside the workshop participants thought there were solutions to other problems.
E.g., having groups of students participate in citizen science outside of school as elective experiences, i.e., clubs.
3. The NParks representative assured us that schools often contacted NParks for ways their students could participate in citizen science, and NParks had a mechanism (or mechanisms) for coordinating activities among students.
4. Kids like gadgets, and using even very simple gadgets (like a trash grabber) was enough to maintain student interest in a project.
There was a lot of productive conversation and brainstorming among the participants, and some pretty cool illustrations as well.
There were three or four main concerns, and one or two solutions.
1. Primary and secondary education, especially in Singapore, has fairly stringent curricular constraints, which leads to time constraints. Finding the time in the context of a set curriculum to do citizen science with primary and secondary school students was a challenge that all workshop participants mentioned.
2. The education system in Singapore, especially, relies heavily on testing, and as a consequence of grade-based evaluations, participants were concerned that citizen science would detract from rather than enhance education in the eyes of parents. That is, while participants thought citizen science might be seen as “relaxing” the general feeling was that outside people in particular might not think of it as enhancing education.
3. There was a general concern of coordinating among enough schools to make the citizen science project legitimate science, vs. just a group of class project.
4. Many participants in the workshop thought that students at that level might lack the sophistication or interest to be reliable citizen scientists..
A few possible solutions came up.
1. Many schools require participation in Community Involvement Programs (CIP), which may have changed names. These are typically aimed at service-oriented projects, e.g., working with the elderly. Participants thought that environmental- or conservation-based citizen science projects might fit into this category and students could participate that way.
2. Several people outside the workshop participants thought there were solutions to other problems.
E.g., having groups of students participate in citizen science outside of school as elective experiences, i.e., clubs.
3. The NParks representative assured us that schools often contacted NParks for ways their students could participate in citizen science, and NParks had a mechanism (or mechanisms) for coordinating activities among students.
4. Kids like gadgets, and using even very simple gadgets (like a trash grabber) was enough to maintain student interest in a project.
There was a lot of productive conversation and brainstorming among the participants, and some pretty cool illustrations as well.