Using Citizen Science projects to facilitate science

inquiry(http://goo.gl/W9n3G)

July 18-19, 2012

Bruce PalmquistCentral Washington University

Learner Outcomes Assessment1. Participant will describe benefits of using citizen science projects in their science class

One-minute essay describing benefits and applications to the participants own classroom

2. Participant will use the internet to identify citizen science projects that can be aligned with k-12 science units.

Two contributions to the workshop Google Doc outlining projects, classroom application, topic

3. Participant will modify a standard science lesson to incorporate a citizen science project.

Outline of a modified lesson

Workshop objectives

Workshop Schedule

Day 1

• Do a brief project

• Discuss benefits of citizen science projects

• Do a brief project

• Alignment with curriculum

• Citizen science websites

• Finding projects

• Homework

Day 2

• Do a brief collaborative project

• Assessment

• Standards

• Work on workshop capstone project

• Share capstone project

• Next steps

Engage: Short plant project

• We will do a Project BudBurst single report from the CWU Arboretum

• Get into groups of 2-3• Look at the BudBurst Master Plant list• Pick two plants from the list to observe• Download and print out the appropriate

Single Report form• We will enter the information later

Brainstorm the benefits

• Develop obs skills through inquiry• Gets students out of the classroom to

explore surroundings• Familiarize students with local plants• Students use all of their senses• Participate in real data• Compare over time• Ability to classify the environment

Watch this video

Benefits of Citizen Science projects

• Many of these projects could not be done any other way

• Teach inquiry skills• Get students involved in real science

projects• Interact with professional, citizen and

student scientists from around the world• Value of GLOBE, an extensive project

Online citizen science lab activity

• Go to http://goo.gl/YiByT to access the Moon Zoo activity.

• Click File → Download as… Microsoft Word. Save to the desktop.

• We'll go through the tutorial together.• Analyze 2-3 images. Enter your information

on the worksheet. Start to answer the discussion questions.

• Discuss the activity• (Save your results for tomorrow.)

How do scientists benefit?

Based on a supernova identification project• Scientists are freed from doing the initial data

analysis• Supernova images are analyzed by multiple

people• Multiple people can immediately follow up on

interesting candidates• The large number of human classifications

collected can be used to improve machine learning algorithms for automated classification.

Comprehensive Citizen Science Websites with multiple projects

• SciStarter: http://scistarter.com/• Robust search engine, all types of projects

• GLOBE: http://www.globe.gov/home• Many teacher resources, mostly

environmental projects• Citizen Science Central:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit• Searchable database, mostly nature-related

projects

Focused project sets

• These sites aren’t as comprehensive but also are not a difficult to use

• Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/• Mostly astronomy projects

• Project Budburst: http://neoninc.org/budburst/• Monitor plants around the world, teacher

resources• Did you feel it?:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/• Report possible earthquakes in your area

You try one

• In groups of no more than 3, find a project to work on for the next 30 minutes.

• Go to http://scistarter.com/ and use their search engine

• Report what you did, and how you could use it in your school

• Enter project name and application at http://goo.gl/SPhk3

Homework

• Homework?• Yes, homework• Read the short article

from Middle Ground, a middle school magazine

• Think of how you could incorporate a citizen science project into one of your lessons or extra curricular activities

Review from yesterday

• Worked on two citizen science projects• Discussed the benefits• Found an interesting sample project and

shared it on the class list http://goo.gl/SPhk3 Seasonal patterns of the Eastern Phoebe

Preview of today

• Sample collaborative activity - combining our moon zoo data and investigating a student-created hypothesis

• Discuss assessment• Practice alignment with a Laser Kit lesson• Discuss standards• Work on capstone project

Do people learn science?

According to the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, Citizen Science projects…• Increase participant's content knowledge• Do not increase understanding of the

scientific process...• unless they are organized in a way that

makes participants aware of the scientific process they are involved in

Sample collaborative lab activity

• Go to http://goo.gl/BcdBZ to access the group version Moon Zoo activity. Today everyone will be working on the same worksheet at the same time.

• Work with a partner to develop a hypothesis you could test using your existing data. Enter that on the worksheet.

• Enter your data from yesterday.• We'll discuss the questions as a group.

Your assessment ideas

• Students make a chart or graph• Rubric of what the students should learn

o come up with a hypothesis?o prove or disprove hypo?o collect the data?o accuracy of data?o did they come up with another question?o did it lead to more research?

Bruce's assessment ideas

• Students fill out a template and answer questions (similar to individual Moon Zoo)

• Students collaborate on a project to generate and test a hypothesis (similar to today’s Moon Zoo)

• Students present their results on a poster either live or via Voicethread

• Lots of assessment info at http://www.globe.gov/teaching-and-learning/assessment-tools/overview

Alignment with LASER kits• Quickly review lesson 12 from Earth in

Space, a Washington LASER Alliance kit typically used in 8th grade found at http://goo.gl/FLiQ4

• Brainstorm how you could integrate the Moon Zoo activity you just did with this lesson

• Report back to the class

Earth in Space → WA Standards

State science standards

National StandardsNext Generation Sci Standards• Science practice• Crosscutting concepts• Disciplinary core ideas• Emphasis on the design

of experiments and design of solutions

• Interconnectedness of science, engineering, technology and society

Common Core Language Arts• Cite specific text analysis• Follow a multistep

process• Integrate verbal and

visual information• Distinguish among facts,

reasoned judgment, and speculation

• Compare/contrast information sources

Workshop Capstone project

• Outline a lesson that incorporates a citizen science project. The outline should include:

• Lesson topic and objectives• How the citizen science project will be

assessed• Standards addressed by the citizen science

project• Language arts reinforced by the citizen

science project• Share your lesson with the class verbally and

at http://goo.gl/SPhk3

Next steps for you

• Get comfortable with one citizen science website

• Integrate a project into one lesson or one extracurricular activity

• Seek out another teacher to do a similar project

• Compare results with the other classroom and the rest of the world

• Contact CWU for more ideas

GLOBE: for advanced interest

• The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program is a worldwide school-based science and education program.

• GLOBE began on Earth Day, 1995. There are more than 58,000 GLOBE-trained teachers and over 1.5 million students.

• More than 23 million measurements added to the GLOBE database for professional science and school science projects.

• This project has a steep learning curve for teachers but potentially the biggest reward.

Contact information

• Bruce Palmquisto palmquis@cwu.edu

• Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Educationo http://www.cwu.edu/cesme/o Contact for information about outreach

opportunities and equipment loan program