In my work as a biology teacher, one of my goals has been to engage students as scientists. Certainly, laboratory activities in the classroom can initiate that process, but sharing projects and strategies that students can apply outside the classroom will make a more long-lasting impact. One such strategy that I have long found engaging is citizen science.
My own contribution as a citizen scientist began with a mark and recapture project of butterflies called Monarch Watch, started with Dr. Chip Taylor at the University of Kansas (https://monarchwatch.org/). We began in the early 1990s, when the idea of citizen science was just getting started and before the term had been coined by Rick Bonney of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology. It was easy to see how working on a citizen science project might benefit students, giving them a chance to work on and contribute to an authentic scientific...
University of California Press