Citizen Science and Schools: Salzburg Students gain insight

The lecture series “Citizen Science and Participation” is offered online during the winter semester and is part of the bachelor’s programme “DiG – Digitalisation–Innovation–Society”. It is also attended by students from the bachelor’s programme “Movement–Nutrition–Health” as well as by teacher training students.

In the session designed by the OeAD Centre for Citizen Science and the University of Innsbruck, students were invited to reflect on the added value of early engagement with science and research, and to consider where schools are already involved in research activities. In addition to OeAD programmes such as Sparkling Science 2.0 and the Citizen Science Award, the discussion also covered the framework conditions that must be taken into account for successful cooperation between research institutions and schools.

Afterwards, concrete projects carried out at the University of Innsbruck in collaboration with pupils were presented, demonstrating the important research contributions schools can make to specific scientific questions. These included the Sparkling Science projects PLASTIC.ALPS and Lebensraum Gründach, as well as an “Extreme Citizen Science” project in which a school took on the monitoring of a glacier.