Engaging Non-Science Majors in Authentic Research through Citizen Science

通过公民科学让非科学专业学生参与真实研究

• 批准号: 1821319
• 负责人: Laura Trouille
• 金额: $ 59.94万
• 依托单位: Adler Planetarium
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821319&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Engaging; Non; Science; Majors; Authentic

The nation's welfare depends on the ability of people to understand scientific information and make sense of data. Introductory science courses are often the last formal science course taken by undergraduate students who are not majoring in science. In many of these introductory science courses, students gain little insight into what scientists do and how science works. It is therefore important for introductory courses to provide opportunities for students to better understand how science works, and to gain skills using and analyzing data. In this project, curricula will be developed and tested for introductory astronomy, biology, and geoscience courses to involve students in citizen science research projects. Students will actively participate in the online citizen science platform, Zooniverse, and conduct group research projects of their own design. The Zooniverse platform allows scientists to work with amateur volunteers on authentic research. It contains over 80 active citizen science projects on a variety of topics and provides quality curated data with user-friendly data analysis tools. This project aims to create opportunities for students to carry out work to support scientific discovery and reach evidence-based conclusions. Through these experiences, it is expected that students will improve their scientific knowledge and scientific thinking skills.This project aims to develop, implement, and assess citizen science research experiences in introductory science courses for non-science majors. Curricular materials will be developed for introductory astronomy, biology, and geoscience courses at five different types of institutions. The proposed materials will engage students with in-class activities and group research projects. These activities will use the Zooniverse online platform to engage students in classifying data, assessing data reliability, and using scientific approaches to explore the data in a real-world context. Materials developed in this project will be informed by evidence-based practices associated with course based undergraduate research experiences. The effort will build on the project teams' prior work to integrate Zooniverse-based research experiences in introductory astronomy courses. The team will assess ease of use and implementation of the research experiences across the disciplinary content, institutional contexts, and course structures. The impact on students' learning and attitudinal gains will be assessed using pre/post surveys, coded assignments, interviews with students, and embedded assessments within the Zooniverse platform. The outcomes that will be assessed include changes in science self-efficacy, science identity, ability to make claims and reason with evidence, and potential for lifelong science engagement. Project results will be widely disseminated, and all materials will be publicly available via classroom.zooniverse.org.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

国家的福利取决于人们理解科学信息和理解数据的能力。理科入门课程通常是非理科专业本科生所修的最后一门正规理科课程。在许多这样的科学入门课程中，学生们对科学家做了什么以及科学是如何工作的洞察力很少。因此，入门课程为学生提供机会更好地理解科学是如何工作的，并获得使用和分析数据的技能，这一点很重要。在这个项目中，将开发和测试天文学、生物学和地球科学入门课程的课程，让学生参与公民科学研究项目。学生们将积极参与在线公民科学平台Zooniverse，并开展自己设计的小组研究项目。Zooniverse平台允许科学家与业余志愿者合作进行真实的研究。它包含80多个关于各种主题的活跃的公民科学项目，并提供高质量的精选数据和用户友好的数据分析工具。这个项目旨在为学生创造机会，让他们开展支持科学发现的工作，并得出基于证据的结论。通过这些经验，期望学生提高他们的科学知识和科学思维能力。本项目旨在开发、实施和评估非理科专业科学入门课程中的公民科学研究经验。将为五个不同类型的机构的天文学、生物学和地球科学入门课程开发课程材料。建议的材料将使学生参与课堂活动和小组研究项目。这些活动将利用Zooniverse在线平台让学生参与数据分类、评估数据可靠性，并使用科学方法在现实世界中探索数据。在这个项目中开发的材料将通过与基于课程的本科生研究经验相关的循证实践来获得信息。这项工作将建立在项目团队先前的工作基础上，将基于Zooniverse的研究经验整合到天文学入门课程中。该小组将评估研究经验在学科内容、机构背景和课程结构中的易用性和实施情况。将使用事前/事后调查、编码作业、对学生的访谈和Zooniverse平台内嵌的评估来评估对学生学习和态度获得的影响。评估的结果包括科学自我效能感、科学认同感、提出主张和用证据推理的能力，以及终身从事科学活动的潜力。项目结果将被广泛传播，所有材料将通过课堂、Zooniverse.org公开提供。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

A New Curriculum Development Model for Improving Undergraduate Students’ Data Literacy and Self-Efficacy in Online Astronomy Classrooms

提高本科生的数据素养和自我效能在线天文课堂的新课程开发模式

• DOI: 10.32374/aej.2022.2.1.043ra
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Astronomy Education Journal
• 作者: Simon, Molly;Prather, Edward;Rosenthal, Isaac;Cassidy, Michael;Hammerman, James;Trouille, Laura
• 通讯作者: Trouille, Laura