My project is about citizen science and how it
can be incorporated into an educational setting. Citizen science is a recently
established field of science where experts of science can get help from
non-experts through input of data and observations. This research matches
exactly with my ultimate goals of becoming an effective secondary level biology
teacher. I would like to explore a variety of ways to make science applicable
to a diverse group of students. Citizen science allows science non-experts to
make observations about their region and incorporate it into a large online
database, so this would be a perfect way to allow students to explore the
nature and process of science as well as help them understand that they can
make a difference in the world.
Most of the work I actually do is on the
computer. Last month I took an online course offered by the Citizen Science
Academy. In this course, I got to explore a variety of citizen science projects
such as CoCoRaHS, Project BudBurst, and eBird. I also got to write an
educational activity and full lesson plan including two of the projects and
received feedback. After the course finished, I am now moving towards seeing
the big picture and what best practices there are for utilizing citizen science
in the classroom. I will ultimately write a lesson plan tailored to Virginia
Standards of Learning in grades 6-12.
As a student in the Bachelor’s/Accelerated
Master’s program for Secondary Biology Education, I am enrolled in classes that
are teaching me about pedagogy and how to incorporate aspects of it into my
research. For example, one class I had last week discussed writing learning
objectives and formative and summative assessments, and these are both very
important components of a successful and effective lesson plan that I will
ensure to ultimately work towards.
