Young Citizen Scientists with 'Zooniverse in Schools'

公民科学为公众提供了以有意义的方式参与科学的机会，这对参与者和研究人员都是有益的。它允许人们对研究做出真实的贡献，同时了解更多关于一个主题的信息。在课堂上，这有可能影响年轻人对科学的态度和与科学的关系。通过向孩子们展示他们能够为真实的科学做出有价值的贡献，公民科学提供了一个培养他们的“科学身份”和建立科学资本（即科学经验，知识和与科学的联系）的机会，影响16岁后继续科学的选择。它还可以通过给学生直接的研究经验和“科学是如何工作的”知识来培养科学素养。“Zooniverse in School”的青年公民科学家将是将STFC公民科学引入学校的第一个大规模计划，通过让儿童（9-12岁）参与真实的科学研究，支持STFC对一个重视和参与科学事业的社会的愿景。通过世界上最大和最受欢迎的公民科学平台，Zooniverse，他们将加入来自世界各地的志愿者，参与研究，否则将是不可行的。该平台上的研究项目涵盖所有学科，通常涉及多名志愿者通过识别或分类一系列图像中的对象来分析数据。Zooniverse in Schools扩展了这一点，让年轻人能够使用新开发的“Zoo Notes”应用程序在一系列课堂活动中对图像进行额外分析。该应用程序允许学生查看对特定图像的所有贡献，从而在与研究人员讨论结果之前可视化和解释分析数据。学校中的Zooniverse将专注于两个研究领域; Science Scribbler，志愿者识别和分类钻石光源产生的病毒图像，以提高我们对病毒如何在细胞中繁殖的理解; Galaxy Zoo，志愿者对星系图像进行分类，以帮助我们了解它们的形状可以告诉我们关于星系和整个宇宙的信息。在第一年，将在学校就每个专题举办三次在线或面对面讲习班，并辅以实践活动和讨论，以帮助学生发展分析和探究技能。在第二年，我们将通过现场多学校网络研讨会、预先录制的视频内容、问答环节和简单的DIY演示，在全国范围内提供在线Zooniverse学校挑战赛，并以庆祝活动结束。这将使我们能够扩大该计划的覆盖面，同时仍然提供支持，鼓励和与研究人员的联系。连续的活动让学生和他们的老师有机会深入探索和理解研究过程，并亲身体验科学的协作性质。他们提供与相关研究人员的直接联系，讨论这项研究的现实影响，重点是学生的贡献。这些活动让我们有机会探索用于对数据进行成像的设施和技术，以及我们用来训练计算机分析大型数据集的方法（研究算法和决策树等概念）。学校中的Zooniverse将建立在牛津物理的工作基础上，吸引来自STEM中代表性不足的背景的年轻人。我们已经在一系列的工作坊中与我们当地的目标学校开发和试点了“动物园笔记”。我们现在将与一些合作伙伴（钻石光源，奥格登信托基金会，SEPnet，我是一个科学家和阿宾登科学伙伴关系）合作，以提高该计划的影响力，并确保我们接触到受益最多的年轻人;那些生活在英国最贫困和偏远地区的人。

Citizen science provides the public with the opportunity to engage with science in a meaningful way that can have mutual benefit for participants and researchers. It allows people to make authentic contributions to research while simultaneously learning more about a topic. In the classroom this has the potential to impact on a young person's attitude towards and relationship with science. By showing children that they're able to make valuable contributions to real science, citizen science provides an opportunity to nurture their 'science identity' and build science capital (i.e. experiences in, knowledge of, and connections with science), influencing choices to continue with science post-16. It can also develop scientific literacy by giving students direct research experience and knowledge of 'how science works'.Young Citizen Scientists with 'Zooniverse in School' will be the first large-scale programme to put STFC citizen science in schools, supporting STFC's vision of a society that values and participates in scientific endeavour by engaging children (9-12 years) with real scientific research. Through the world's largest and most popular citizen science platform, The Zooniverse, they will join volunteers from around the world to participate in research that would otherwise be unfeasible. The research projects on the platform, which span all disciplines, typically involve multiple volunteers analysing data by identifying or classifying objects in a series of images. Zooniverse in Schools extends this by enabling young people to undertake additional analysis of the images in a series of classroom activities using the newly-developed 'Zoo Notes' app. The app allows students to view all contributions made on a particular image, and thus visualise and interpret the analysed data before discussing their results with the researchers. Zooniverse in Schools will focus on two research areas; Science Scribbler, where volunteers identify and categorise images of viruses generated at Diamond Light Source to improve our understanding of how viruses multiply in cells and Galaxy Zoo, where volunteers categorise images of galaxies to help us understand what their shape can tell us about the galaxies and the Universe as a whole.In the first year, three online or in-person workshops on each topic will take place in schools, augmented with hands-on activities and discussions to help students develop their analytical and enquiry skills. In the second year, we will deliver an online Zooniverse in Schools Nationwide Challenge through live, multi-school webinars, pre-recorded video content, Q&A sessions and simple DIY demonstrations, closing with a celebration event. This will enable us to scale-up the reach of the programme while still providing support, encouragement and contact with researchers.The sequential activities give students and their teachers the opportunity to explore and understand the research process in depth and experience the collaborative nature of the science for themselves. They provide direct contact with the researchers involved to discuss the real-world impact of this research, focussing on the students' contribution. The activities give the opportunity to explore the facilities and techniques used to image the data and the methods we use to train computers to analyse large data sets (investigating concepts like algorithms and decision trees).Zooniverse in Schools will build upon Oxford Physics' work in engaging young people from backgrounds that are underrepresented within STEM. We have already developed and piloted, in a series of workshops, 'Zoo Notes' with our local target schools. We will now work with a number of partners (Diamond Light Source, The Ogden Trust, SEPnet, I'm a Scientist and Abingdon Science Partnership) to enhance the impact of the programme and ensure we reach young people who will benefit the most; those who live in the most deprived and remote areas of the UK.