Increased knowledge and scientific thinking following participation of school students in air-quality research

摘要

Public participation in scientific research, also known as citizen science, is claimed to have many social, educational and civil benefits for participants. The current study focuses on students' participation in an air-quality citizen science initiative in schools. As part of the European "CITISENSE" project for developing sensor-based citizen observatories, air-quality sensors which continuously monitor air-quality were installed within school premises. Seventh grade students participated in different stages of the research including planning sensor locations, developing research questions and analyzing air-quality data. Students' knowledge, attitude, behavior, and scientific and critical thinking regarding air-quality were examined using pre and post questionnaires. Results demonstrate an increase in students' content knowledge and scientific thinking (p<0.05), but no difference in attitude, behavior or critical thinking. These results exhibit the educational benefits of citizen science for knowledge construction and scientific understanding and provides better understanding of the potential use of citizen science as a learning method.