Center for Community & Citizen Science Blog

Blog entry Peggy Harte

Professional Learning Opportunity: Get Back Time By Forefronting Science

April 20, 2021

This workshop highlighted ways in which elementary teachers can plan for science even with limited time for student contact by forefronting science within integrated lessons. We explored the Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) and look at ways the EP&Cs have been integrated into other content area frameworks. Participants left with a co-designed grade level resource to allow for integrated unit planning that places science at the core.

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How to teach an experiential field course online

This post was developed by Laci Gerhart-Barley, Christopher Jadallah, Sarah Angulo, and Greg Ira, who have recently published a paper about their work adapting an experiential field course (with significant citizen science components) to an online setting during Covid-19. You can access the paper, published in Ecology and Evolution, here

Blog entry Peggy Harte Written by Peggy Harte, MEd

Using Environmental Literacy as the Through Line, All Standards All Students: A Focus on Equity and Access

Environmental Literacy, Environmental Principles & Concepts, Next Generation Science Standards, Incremental Infusion

Student participating in classroom activity

Using Environmental Literacy as the Through Line, All Standards All Students: A Focus on Equity and Access

BY MARGARET (PEGGY) HARTE, MED|NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Environmental Literacy, Environmental Principles & Concepts, Next Generation Science Standards, Incremental Infusion

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Resources for Citizen Science Project Planning

Manual Full

We are excited to share three resources use in developing or evolving citizen science projects. While their focus is on dam removal and watershed restoration, much of this material could be useful for a wide range of contexts and problem areas related to conservation and natural resource management.

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Photo Essay: Community-Based Monitoring and the Matilija Dam

Matilija Dam Removing the Matilija Dam will be no easy feat. Standing at a height of roughly 168-feet, or about 15 stories tall, this 73-year-old concrete structure blocks the flow of Matilija Creek, a major tributary of the Ventura River in Southern California.

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Our Specific Commitments to Anti-Racism

July 2020

In early June, 2020, the Center for Community and Citizen Science acknowledged that while some of our ongoing work is explicitly oriented toward equity and social justice, we have also failed to advance equity and justice through the entirety of our work, particularly in the context of academia, which is inextricably linked to historical and ongoing marginalization of BIPOC. We have an obligation to examine our own work, our own everyday actions, and our institutional context, and identify ways that these perpetuate racism.

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Did Covid-19 make the “City Nature Challenge” less green?

For his capstone project in the Wild Davis course, taught by CCS Faculty Fellow Laci Gerhart, Nicholas Monty explored spatial shifts in City Nature Challenge observation patterns between 2019 and 2020, using remote sensing measurements of relative “greenness.” We’re happy to share his fascinating approach here. Thank you Nicholas!

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Working Toward Racial Justice

June 11, 2020

We at the Center for Community and Citizen Science are horrified and saddened by the most recent iterations of anti-Blackness and systemic racism in our society, our communities, and our institutions. While the events of recent weeks have laid bare their consequences, these systems have always existed in the United States. The murders of George Floyd, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only recent examples, among countless others, of Black people suffering under a centuries-old system of white supremacy.

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This Friday: 2020 City Nature Challenge!

     “This year we want to celebrate life where life is challenged.” 
                                                                                                - Jaime González

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City Nature Challenge & COVID-19

The global challenge… fought locally

2020’s City Nature Challenge has been modified to keep organizers and participants safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than the typical competition, this year’s CNC is focusing on collaboration and spending restorative time in nature. You can still document biodiversity safely, although it may require some extra creativity or staying in your home.

The 2020 City Nature Challenge takes place in two parts —

  • April 24 – 27: Taking pictures of wild plants and animals.
  • April 28 – May 3: Identifying what was found.
Post Peggy Harte

Outside Wonder Lab

Engaging in citizen science at home

Schools may be closed, but the citizen science fun can continue! For example our CCS Innovator Fellow, Peggy Harte has initiated the Outside Wonder Lab Project to help families learn about their backyards and nearby open spaces while practicing responsible social distancing.

Join your county’s Outside Wonder Lab Project (all listed here) on iNaturalist to discover the creatures that have been sharing your space. Take the first step by going out into your yard, then start observing. Using iNaturalist you can capture pictures of your observations, identify the species you have discovered, and share your findings. Even if we are all physically apart, this project provides an opportunity to learn from each other while contributing to a global database that scientists can use to better understand and protect nature. In the past few days, our Yolo County community has sighted Western Fence Lizards, Sierran treefrogs, American Avocets, and over 2000 other species!

Post Peggy Harte

New Video: Gardens & Citizen Science Project in Woodland Elementary Schools

The Center for Community and Citizen Science is happy to share this new video, produced by our partner Yolo County Office of Education, describing our collective work on citizen science in school gardens. The video introduces our ongoing Gardens & Citizen Science Project, and profiles the work teachers are doing to implement citizen science school gardens, in Woodland, California! Check out the video here.

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WELCOME Michael Dobbins !

The Center for Community and Citizen Science is excited to welcome Michael Dobbins as the new postdoctoral scholar! Michael will be joining a project focused on marine protected areas (MPAs) in California, analyzing citizen science data collected by participants in the MPA Watch Program. 

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New Publication: For Science and Self

Youth Interactions with Data in Citizen and Community Science

Faculty director Heidi Ballard and postdoctoral scholar Erin Bird were recently published in the Journal of the Learning Sciences, in collaboration with UC Davis alumni Emily Harris and Colin Dixon. For Science and Self: Youth Interactions with Data in Community and Citizen Science details how youth interact with and discuss their data by analyzing eight school- and community-based project sites. In doing so, the authors were able to document opportunities for agentive learning with data in youth-focused community and citizen science (YCCS). Their results, “shed light on when and how conditions for expansive learning and agency get established.”

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New paper: Young Volunteers & Online Participation in Zooniverse

 Appearing in the most recent issue of Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, “What Do We Know About Young Volunteers? An Exploratory Study of Participation in Zooniverse” examines how youth, mainly 16–19 years old, participate in online citizen science projects. The co-authors include Heidi Ballard, the Center’s Faculty Director, and other colleagues collaborating on the LEARN CitSci project, funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. 

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