Center for Community & Citizen Science Blog
Teaching Tanzanian Educators How to Engage Their Students in Science and English Language Instruction by Exploring Outdoor Spaces
On April 18, 2025, thirty passionate educators from across Tanzania (and beyond) gathered for an interactive workshop designed to transform the way science and English are taught in schools—by taking learning outside.
Heidi Ballard Presents in eeWORKS webinar: What We Have Learned and Why It Matters
How community and citizen science impacts environmental education
On June 18, 2025, director Heidi
Ballard gave a wonderful presentation on community science for
environmental education (EE) in the eeWORKS webinar “eeWORKS:
What We Have Learned and Why It Matters“. With over 200
people registered, Heidi dove into systematic review findings
about EE and its impact on K-12 education, youth development, and
much more.
Watch the webinar recording now here!
Youth Voices in Action: Advocacy and Outreach in the Spinning Salmon Program
By Peggy Harte, Youth Education Program Manager, UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science
When the Spinning Salmon Program launched five years ago, it set out to engage youth in emergent science, spark curiosity and foster a deeper connection between youth and the researchers focused on salmon in California. Through participatory science, the program has done more than build knowledge and engage youth—it has shown young people that they have the skills to take an active role in scientific discovery and environmental stewardship.
“What would make you proud to present your work?” Spinning Salmon Showcase celebrates student science, storytelling and stewardship
What happens when you invite students who’ve been raising salmon, collecting data, and diving into real-world environmental challenges to share their science with the world?
You get a room full of paper mâché, research posters, dioramas, personal essays, poems, storytelling, and more!
publication: How establishing a marine protected area network has shaped community and citizen science along California’s coast
Research and monitoring are key to
measuring the success of adaptive management strategies in marine
conservation. Through community and citizen science (CCS),
volunteers can become involved in various stages of research and
monitoring. CCS can strengthen partnerships, help collect large
amounts of high-quality data, and be a way to achieve education
and stewardship goals. For marine conservation, constantly
changing policy, funding, and other forms of support influence
how CCS is used for research and monitoring.
From Schoolyard to Biodiversity Hotspot
Fourth Graders Join the City Nature Challenge
This spring, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the City Nature Challenge, I had the joy of watching a group of Dixon 4th graders transform their school campus. Eyes wide as they were amazed by the power of their own observations as, in their eyes, their school yard was transformed from the schoolyard they engage with every day into a thriving field site where they were able to make observations as real scientists.
Conference: Our work presented at the Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences
May 27-30, 2025
The Center for Community and Citizen Science is so honored and excited to present about our work at the upcoming Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences in Portland, Oregon. For colleagues who are attending, make sure to stop by the places where our work is highlighted, listed below. Can’t wait to see you there!
PUBLICATION: Elementary students learning through data analysis and sharing findings
Design-based research for community and citizen science in schools
Alexandra Race, a postdoctoral scholar at CCCS, and a research team of fellow post-docs, graduate students in the SOE, and non-profit collaborators recently published Elementary students learning through data analysis and sharing findings: design-based research for community and citizen science in schools.
Practitioner Resource: Supporting Volunteer-Based Monitoring of Human Activities in Watersheds
We are excited to announce the release of “A Guide to Volunteer-Based Monitoring of Human Activities in Watersheds,” a resource developed by the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science in collaboration with the Resources Legacy Fund’s (RLF) Open Rivers Fund. This guide emerged from an ongoing project focused on the role that community and citizen science (CCS) can play in dam removal and watershed restoration, and it serves as a companion piece to the CCS manual.
NARST 2025 Preview
Wildfire Mitigation and Social-Ecological Systems Resilience in Maui, Hawaiʻi
In response to the August 2023 Lahaina fire, a research-practice partnership is reimagining how high school students can contribute to wildfire mitigation while learning both Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Science. This work will be presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) conference in March 2025 through a roundtable discussion titled “Culturally-Relevant Field Ecology: Wildfire Mitigation and Social-Ecological Systems Resilience in Maui, Hawaiʻi.”
2025 Field Trip to the Nimbus Hatchery
Spinning Salmon Students Experience Science in Action at Nimbus Hatchery
Last week, Youth Education Program
Manager, Peggy Harte, was able to join a group of students
participating in the Spinning
Salmon program, taking their research questions and learnings
into the field with a visit to the Nimbus Fish
Hatchery.
Becca VanArnam Accepted for 2025 Delta Science Fellowship
Congratulations to Becca
VanArnam, 2024-2025 Citizen Science in Conservation (CCSiC)
Fellow and Ph.D. student in Science and Agricultural Education,
on being awarded a 2025
Delta Science Fellowship! This program, funded by
California Sea Grant and in collaboration with agency partners
such as the Delta Stewardship Council, assists researchers in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin delta.
CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Brushstrokes for Birds
A Public Engagement Project
About Me
Greetings! I’m a fourth year PhD
candidate studying the ecological causes and consequences of
Common Tern aggression. Common Terns are migratory seabirds that
are globally distributed, though my work primarily takes place
during their summer breeding season in the Gulf of Maine.
Training: Your Community and Citizen Science Road Map
March 14, 2025
A participatory science
workshop for researchers
The Center for Community and Citizen Science invites UC Davis researchers to participate in our community and citizen science (CCS) Roadmap workshop! This free workshop will be held on Friday March 14 from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm at UC Davis School of Education, Room 174.
Project Update: GEAR UP Collaboration Launches Data Collection with FieldScope!
We are excited to share a
significant milestone for the Spinning Salmon Project: the launch
of Year 4 of student-driven data collection in partnership with
the GEAR UP STEM Rural Valley Partnership! This collaboration is
energizing students with 21st-century tools, empowering them to
explore salmon ecology while supporting GEAR UP’s core goals:
New Resources for Community Science in Schools
Sierra Streams Institute and the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science are pleased to announce the launch of final products from the Our Forests project, all available on a comprehensive website for teachers, school administrators, education practitioners and the general public at large.
North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Conference Recap
From November 5th-9th, members of the Center for Community & Citizen Science presented at the North American Association for Environmental Education Conference and Research Symposium (NAAEE) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Heidi Ballard hosted two presentations, one focused on her recently published literature review and another roundtable discussion about the center’s partnership with the Insight Garden Program. Youth Education Program Manager Peggy Harte and Ph.D.
California Association of Science Educators Conference Recap
Youth Education Program Manager, Peggy Harte, recently presented a short course on campus-based monitoring at the California Association of Science Educators’ (CASE) conference. Presenting alongside Chris Griesemer (Director of the Sacramento Area Science Project) the course highlighted ways educators can use their school campus to examine local phenomena and engage youth in nature monitoring programs through participatory science.
UC Davis Health Speaker Series
UC Davis Health Clinical and Transitional Science Center IAL Speaker Series: Engaging Adolescent and Young Adults (AYA) in Health Research
On November 11th, our Youth Education Program Manager, Peggy Harte, presented at the UC Davis Health Clinical and Translational Science Center IAL Speaker Series: Engaging Adolescent and Young Adults (AYA) in Health Research. This course is part of a three-part series on Inclusion Across the Lifespan (IAL) in Clinical Research. The purpose of the session was to broadly inform researchers and staff about the NIH’s Inclusion Across the Lifespan policy.
Event: Exploring Diverse Approaches to Participatory Research Webinar
December 13, 2024
Doing Science
Together: Exploring Diverse Approaches to Participatory
Research
