Traineeship at the Minho estuary lab: merging citizen science and environmental education
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1
Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal
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2
Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research, Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal
In this work we document the experience of a four-year project in which young citizens were engaged in the scientific activities of a research laboratory for two weeks. The project converged science and environmental education, aiming at improving environmental literacy on estuarine ecosystems, using Citizen Science - i.e. involving the citizens in data collection, treatment and discussion for later publication (Bonney et al 2009) - as a pedagogic tool to appraise relevant environmental issues.
The complex nature of current environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss is widely discussed by both scientists and society. While (environmental) science education focuses mainly on teaching knowledge and skills which are essential for improving environmental literacy, environmental education also incorporates values and behavioral change towards more sustainable actions (Wals et al 2014). Although raising environmental knowledge and awareness have not always a simple and direct relationship with attitude changing, both take advantage of scientific evidence, as some understanding of biological diversity and ecology, and problem solving skills are a requisite for conservation literacy (Berkowitz et al 2005). The scientific community, therefore, has a key role in the process of environmental education of the society.
The project ‘from Minho Estuary to the lab’ was designed to engage Portuguese young citizens in the scientific activities of an ecology laboratory from the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR/CIMAR, Portugal). Objectives were threefold: (1) to improve knowledge on an important natural habitat and awareness of its complexity and ecological functioning; (2) to develop the capacity to think critically, ethically and creatively in appraising ecological issues in a scientific context; and (3) to promote a participatory action in environmental data collection for the undergoing scientific projects. In this way, young citizens were engaged in scientific tasks, collaborating with the scientific staff and students in the laboratory milieu.
In the four annual editions of the project, a total of 30 young citizens (Table 1) were involved. Ages ranged from 14 to 18 years old and academic interests were diverse, though Biology oriented students dominated (Figure 1). Each year, up to three scientific trainee-ships were organized for three students each, lasting for one to two weeks, during school summer holidays.
In each trainee-ship, after a short theoretical introduction to the objectives, and to the scientific background and methods, the young trainees participated in all the procedures, from field trip planning, which was part of the monthly sampling program of the lab, and development for rigorous data collection, to the data treatment and discussion. Tasks were developed in a logical chronological sequence as follows:
1. Planning the field trip: area recognition, checking the local tide’s schedule, organize all sampling equipment, checking equipment for proper functioning, discussion of sampling methods;
2. Field work: sampling, i.e. operating sampling gears (fishing gears, multi-parameter probes), samples transportation and storing;
3. Sorting and species identification in the lab;
4. Biometry and other laboratory work (biochemical analysis e.g. lipids and protein determination);
5. Monitoring of aquarium experiments (on growth, starvation, sex change of estuarine organisms such as the brown shrimp Crangon crangon and the shore crab Carcinus maenas );
6. Entering data in the laboratory database;
7. Data treatment and discussion.
With such a plan, the two-week duration was important to assure that all field and laboratory tasks were developed in a coherent way. Because the participants did not participate in the problem definition, the project can be classified as ‘Level 2 Distributed intelligence - citizens as basic interpreters’ according to Haklay (2013) classification of the typology of citizen participation, where the trainee-ship correspond well with a basic training. Yet, all data collection, treatment and interpretation were done under the scientific staff supervision or in a collaborative way.
The project had an increasing demand over the 4 years (Table 1). The variety of academic interests of the candidates revealed that the experience is beneficial not only in the process of decision-making about the academic route of the students, but also contributes to the scientific literacy of the participants and sensitize them to environmental conservation. The local community at Minho Estuary surroundings also revealed interest during the field trips and expressed natural curiosity.
Besides representing a first contact with the ‘scientific method’ and the reality of scientific research, in a professional context, the project also contributed to the awareness of ecological issues. The field work took place in the Minho Estuary (north of Portugal), which has several environmental protection statuses: it is a Natura 2000 site, an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA), a Special Area for Birds Protection (ZEP), and was classified as a Corine Biotope. Field sampling focused on ecological aspects that were under investigation at the time of the internship. It consisted in measuring environmental parameters such as temperature, salinity, oxygen concentration, and other relevant water quality parameters, along with sampling for living organisms for later biometry analysis, aquaria experiments under controlled conditions and laboratory work. Food availability, predation pressure, and species responses to some of the environmental parameters (e.g. growth responses to temperature), species nutritional condition, to estuarine biodiversity, population dynamics, and trophic webs were within the subjects covered.
Participants had the opportunity to explore, analyze, and interpret conditions, reasons, and expressions of natural situations, getting in personal contact with scientific researchers and discussing possible developments. In this way participants were able to generate knowledge on complex environmental issues. Data gathered is now part of the laboratory databases, covering 10 years of field sampling at Minho Estuary. This dataset has already been partly considered for publication (theses, seminars, scientific papers) [e.g. Moreira et al 2015, Neves et al 2017, Mendes et al 2015] and is available for future publications as well. However, the trainee-ship was not conceived in such a way that these publications would reach the trainee-ship participants.
Future trainee-ships at scientific institutions should be regarded as Citizen Science projects that can bring together scientists and society and increase science literacy. This way, projects engaging young citizens in scientific activities related with ecological subjects can be a pedagogical instrument to improve environmental literacy and can be incorporated in environmental education projects dealing with complex conservation concerns. For the success of such projects, guidelines for collaboration among scientists and the public must be prepared (Tweddle et al 2012) and more emphasis on the follow-up and on the evaluation of the project’s impact is advised, in order to investigate the extent to which these citizen-science initiatives are efficient in changing behaviors.
List of tables and figures
Table 1. Number of candidates and participants for each year of the project.
Figure 1. Academic interests of the participants in the project.
Acknowledgements
Programa Ciência Viva; Strategic Funding UID/Multi/04423/2019 (J Campos, V Freitas) through national funds provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in the framework of the programme PT2020; Project RecBio - Operation MAR-01.04.02-FEAMP-0025 (S Costa-Dias); FCT SFRH/BD/111133/2015 (C Moreira) by NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000035 (MARINFO); Eduardo Martins, Pilar Ordoñez, Julie Da Costa, Patrícia Ferreira, Paula Costa; Aquamuseu do Rio Minho
References
Berkowitz AR, Ford ME, Brewer CA (2005) A framework for integrating ecological literacy, civics literacy, and environmental citizenship in environmental education. Pp 227–266 in EA Johnson, Mappin MA editors. Environmental Education and Advocacy: Changing Perspectives of Ecology and Education. Cambridge University Press, New York
Bonney R, Ballard H, Jordan R, McCallie E, Phillips T, Shirk J, Wilderman CC (2009) Public participation in scientific research: defining the field and assessing its potential for informal science education. Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education, Washington DC
Haklay M (2013) Citizen and volunteered geographic information: overview and typology of participation. In: Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in Theory and Practice, pp 105-122. Springer, The Netherlands
Mendes, J, Moreira, M, Pimentel, I, Duro, K, Campos, J (2015) Sexual dimorphism of the brown shrimp Crangon crangon. IJUP’15, Porto University
Moreira C, Carvalho AP, Campos J (2015) Comparing the response of the brown shrimp Crangon crangon (Linnaeus, 1758) to prolonged deprivation of food in two seasons. Journal of Shellfish Research, 34:521–529
Neves V, Guedes A, Valentim B, Campos J, Freitas V (2017) High incidence of otolith abnormality in juvenile European flounder Platichthys flesus from a tidal freshwater area. Marine Biology Research, 13:933-941
Tweddle JC, Robinson LD, Pocock MJO, Roy HE (2012) Guide to citizen science: developing, implementing and evaluating citizen science to study biodiversity and the environment in the UK. Natural History Museum and NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology for UK-EOF. Available online: www.ukeof.org.uk
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Keywords:
Participatory science,
Environmental Literacy,
natural sciences literacy,
Estuarine Ecosystems,
conservation
Conference:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) , Braga, Portugal, 9 Sep - 12 Sep, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Ecotourism, Environmental Education, Citizen Science and Dissemination of Science
Citation:
Costa-Dias
SC,
Moreira
C,
Venade
CS,
Freitas
V and
Campos
J
(2019). Traineeship at the Minho estuary lab: merging citizen science and environmental education.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2019.08.00097
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Received:
14 May 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mx. Joana Campos, Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research, Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Matosinhos, 4450-208, Portugal, jcampos@ciimar.up.pt