CitSci Helvetia shined with a variety of languages and topics
The virtual conference CitSci Helvetia 2021 (January 14-15, 2021) took place for the first time this year. The conference program was not only diverse in terms of lectures and workshops, but also in terms of languages. As you would expect from multilingual Switzerland, presentations were offered in German, English and French, even with simultaneous translation. The keynote on the first day of the conference - a panel discussion with researchers from different disciplines such as Aletta Bonn (UFZ), Katja Mayer (University of Vienna) and Sascha Dickel (University of Mainz) - revolved around the topic of what challenges a democratisation of scientific knowledge means for science, society and politics. On the second day, the panel focused on Citizen Science in Switzerland. Over the course of the two days, participants presented various initiatives such as the Swiss project Innovative Home Care Models for People with Comprehensive Care Needs: Caring Community Living Labs, which focused on long-term care for the elderly at home, or the Open Humans platform, where citizens can upload data and (jointly) analyse it in the form of projects. The workshops also took aim at numerous topics and dealt, among other things, with the creation of CS projects to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in Switzerland, with the analysis of project presentations on CS platforms in the D-A-CH region or with the discussion of the future Citizen Science Strategy 2030 for Germany.
Citizen Science in schools
In our workshop "Citizen Science in the classroom: recommendations and practical tips", which we conducted with Reik Leiterer from the University of Zurich, we gave the participants an insight into our experiences, especially from the Sparkling Science funding program. We presented the work of the working group "Citizen Science at/with schools" of the Citizen Science Network Austria, which we lead, and discussed with participants their questions and experiences. Of particular interest was the question of how much teachers should be involved in such projects and that a change in thinking is needed so that teachers also become learners and see themselves as mediators of learning processes. Reik Leiterer then presented the citizen science project MountaiNow and how it can be integrated into the classroom. Through cooperation with industry, the project can guarantee long-term use in school classes and is constantly being developed further through collaboration with interested parties.
We would like to thank the conference organisers for the great organisation and an exciting program and look forward to seeing you again soon!
