Integrating Community and Citizen Science with Undergraduate Urban Ecology Coursework
Start Date
4-4-2023 4:00 PM
End Date
4-4-2023 6:00 PM
Abstract
Community and Citizen Science (CCS) holds great potential for enhancing societal engagement and collaboration in urban ecology research. CCS is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists as well as professional scientists (Ballard et al., 2017). This term encompasses a wide range of approaches including public participation in scientific research, volunteer monitoring, crowd-sourced science, or participatory action research (Ballard et al., 2017; Haklay, 2013; e.g., Ottinger, 2017). Though largely lacking in formal training opportunities, CCS is a very powerful form of public engagement with the potential to address declining trust in science institutions, and the urgent need for engagement and mutual understanding in science related to global challenges such as climate change, mass extinction, invasive species, water scarcity, and transboundary threats to public health. In recent years there have been increased efforts to integrate CCS in undergraduate coursework, which provides students diverse opportunities to engage with authentic scientific research that contribute to increased engagement and improved learning (Vance-Chalcraft et al., 2022). Through sharing examples of integrating CCS activities and data with an undergraduate honors urban ecology course at Portland State University, this poster will highlight student experiences, outcomes, and feedback related to this experiential and engaged learning approach.
Subjects
Environmental education
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40481
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Integrating Community and Citizen Science with Undergraduate Urban Ecology Coursework
Community and Citizen Science (CCS) holds great potential for enhancing societal engagement and collaboration in urban ecology research. CCS is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists as well as professional scientists (Ballard et al., 2017). This term encompasses a wide range of approaches including public participation in scientific research, volunteer monitoring, crowd-sourced science, or participatory action research (Ballard et al., 2017; Haklay, 2013; e.g., Ottinger, 2017). Though largely lacking in formal training opportunities, CCS is a very powerful form of public engagement with the potential to address declining trust in science institutions, and the urgent need for engagement and mutual understanding in science related to global challenges such as climate change, mass extinction, invasive species, water scarcity, and transboundary threats to public health. In recent years there have been increased efforts to integrate CCS in undergraduate coursework, which provides students diverse opportunities to engage with authentic scientific research that contribute to increased engagement and improved learning (Vance-Chalcraft et al., 2022). Through sharing examples of integrating CCS activities and data with an undergraduate honors urban ecology course at Portland State University, this poster will highlight student experiences, outcomes, and feedback related to this experiential and engaged learning approach.