Engaging Non-Science Majors in Authentic Research through Citizen Science

国家的福祉取决于人们理解科学信息和理解数据的能力。科学导论课程通常是非理工科本科生最后一门正式的科学课程。在许多科学入门课程中，学生对科学家做什么以及科学是如何运作的了解甚少。因此，重要的是，入门课程应该为学生提供机会，让他们更好地理解科学是如何运作的，并获得使用和分析数据的技能。在这个项目中，将开发和测试入门天文学、生物学和地球科学课程的课程，让学生参与公民科学研究项目。学生将积极参与在线公民科学平台Zooniverse，并进行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一起进行真实的研究。它包含80多个活跃的公民科学项目，涉及各种主题，并通过用户友好的数据分析工具提供高质量的策划数据。本项目旨在为学生创造机会开展支持科学发现的工作，并得出基于证据的结论。通过这些经历，期望学生们能够提高他们的科学知识和科学思维能力。本项目旨在开发、实施和评估非理科生科学导论课程中的公民科学研究经验。课程材料将在五种不同类型的机构中用于天文学、生物学和地球科学的入门课程。拟议的材料将使学生参与课堂活动和小组研究项目。这些活动将使用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环境中探索数据。本项目开发的材料将以基于课程的本科研究经验的循证实践为依据。这项工作将建立在项目团队之前的工作基础上，将基于zooniverse的研究经验整合到天文学入门课程中。该团队将评估跨学科内容、机构背景和课程结构的研究经验的易用性和实施情况。对学生学习和态度收获的影响将通过前后调查、编码作业、学生访谈和Zooniverse平台内的嵌入式评估来评估。评估的结果包括科学自我效能感的变化、科学认同、提出主张和凭证据推理的能力，以及终身参与科学的潜力。项目结果将广泛传播，所有材料将在classroom.zooniverse.org上公开。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响评估标准进行了评估，认为值得支持。

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.