What is citizen science and how could it be utilized in a K1

What is “citizen science” and how could it be utilized in a K-12 classroom to teach students?

Utilize Google to figure out first what citizen science is and familiarize yourself with some well-known examples of it. I am asking you to think creatively and explicitly about how you could utilize citizen science in the K-12 classroom. Essentially, I want you to make a pitch to me for utilizing citizen science in a classroom. Make sure you explain citizen science and your project choice in particular REALLY well. Identify the subject of the class it will be used in and the grade level as well as relevant standards it would address. Which project would you use? How would you use it? What would be the learning objectives? How would you evaluate students to assess whether students met the learning objectives?

In the opinion portion of the write up, do you feel that you would actually use citizen science to teach science concepts in a K-12 classroom? What might be benefits, shortcomings, or challenges of using a citizen science project?

Solution

. Citizen science is a term which is described as public participation in scientific research.It can also be termed as participatory monitoring with scientific research undtaken by the public which are non-professional.It can be utilized in k-12 classroom by choosing a topic and asking the students to carry out a research on the same topic with their views.The subject can be how to make the city clean and green.The learning objectives would be the way how to make it clean by now throwing garbage on roads and learning good manners and using distbins. The evaluation will done on the basis of the research carried out by students and the exam given after the research.

The benefits of citizen science in k-12 classroom are that it helps to build trust in the classroom.It is also a cost efficient way of gathering information about a topic.It also allows simultaneous observations about a research beign conducted.It also helps to engage the students into most important issues of todays world.

The challenges are that data aquisition becomes dependant on resource which is present outside our control.Moreover,There can be tensions between motivations of volunteers.The feedback and the costs are high .Moreover There is a short term committment of the volunteers who do only few projects instead of many.