Science Education and Beyond: Citizen Science in Primary School Potentially Affects Conceptual Learning and Socio-Emotional Development

Abstract

Citizen science (CS) is considered a powerful supplement for teaching natural sciences (and beyond) at school. Even though involving children of primary school age in scientific activities is still uncommon, previous studies confirmed that they can contribute meaningful data as citizen scientists. Yet, the administrative efforts of organising the pupils‘ participation in research activities are high for both, schools and scientists. Typically, some children benefit enormously from participating in a CS project; however, others don’t. To enable decisions for school representatives and funding agencies, empirical tests of the learning benefits of involving CS in routine teaching are needed. This chapter focuses on CS in the education context and wraps up the results of critical tests of (i) factual learning during a project on the social behaviour of a free-living bird species, that is, Greylag geese (Anser anser), (ii) conceptual learning, that is, the transfer of knowledge to new contexts and the children’s concepts of ‘friendship’ and (iii) impulsive behaviour control in primary school children involved in a project as citizen scientists.

How Do Teachers Learn and Engage with Climate Change? An Examination of the <em>Shade Our Schools&mdash;Leaves Are Cool!</em>&nbsp;Citizen Science Program

“…The effectiveness of these programs in the field of ecology has been demonstrated by an increase not only in content knowledge, but also in the awareness of the human impact on nature (Branchini et al 2015). Furthermore, the socio-emotional development and working memory of individuals is improved by their participation in citizen science (Hirschenhauser et al 2023). Educators recognize the value of participating in these projects and the impact they have on learning (Aristeidou et al 2021).…”