FabCitizen: Data-centered Citizen Science for Schools in the Environment of FabLabs Erasmus Project

Project Title

FabCitizen: Data-centered Citizen Science for Schools in the Environment of FabLabs

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The main goal is to enable schools, in particular teachers, parents and pupils, to participate in high quality citizen science projects in both curricular and extracurricular contexts.
Citizen Science (CS) has raised a lot of attention in the last years. Its main goal is to involve citizens in different types of science projects, in particular to 1) improve engagement and 2) to increase research capacities, e.g. by shared data collection. Many projects have incorporated citizen science approaches. Whereas citizen science works well for educational purposes (e.g. in inquiry-based science education), the acceptance of CS on a scientific level ranges from low to questionable. Even though the European Association for Citizen Science has clear guidelines and support mechanisms, many CS projects are not taken seriously. This is the main starting point for the FabCitizen project: We aim at providing tools to increase the quality of CS projects, in particular in schools. For this purpose, we will integrate FabLabs as the main educational environment as they can provide both, technological as well as methodological expertise.
We base our project on clearly defined requirements, amongst them
● In schools, CS projects need to be embedded in the curriculum
● To ease the implementation, teachers need high quality (open) scenarios and learning materials
● CS projects need support in terms of methodological and technological expertise.
In the project, we will achieve the following main results:
● A Citizen Science competency framework describing knowledge, skills and attitudes to successfully engage in high quality CS projects incorporating the key skill of data handling (such analytics, security, ethics)
● A pedagogical concept incorporating aspects of inquiry and service learning
● A guide for FabLabs as the key infrastructure to educate and train schools and citizens.
● At least 200 Open learning scenarios to train teachers, pupils and parents in early secondary school
● A collection of Open Educational Resources supporting the approach
● A good practice guide for schools and FabLabs across Europe

The project will provide guidance and concrete support to universities, FabLabs, schools and the surrounding communities to participate in successful, high quality CS projects. As part of our trials, we will initiate around 100 CS projects. In the long run, we create new methods and materials for broader engagement and quality improvement in CS.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 427420 Eur

Project Coordinator

HOCHSCHULE RUHR WEST & Country: DE

Project Partners

• POLITECNICO DI BARI
• ELLINOGERMANIKI AGOGI SCHOLI PANAGEA SAVVA AE
• VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS