Cross- COST Action Citizen Science Meeting: citizen science as a tool for promotion of scientific literacy in evolution

Deadline for applications: Nov 1st 2019

Apply here

Practical info:

  • Meeting in Berlin (exact location tbc)
  • 13th and 14th January 2020
  • Number of participants reimbursed: 6 participants

Citizen science is a tool that has the potential to enhance scientific literacy in general, and the understanding of evolution in particular. Citizen science can be used, for example, to improve knowledge on invasive alien species and create societal engagement with this steadily growing problem. However, to date there are very few citizen science projects with an explicit evolutionary focus and even fewer are designed specifically to maximise scientific literacy, with measurable outcomes of citizen’s engagement and educational benefits. 

In this meeting, participants from three COST Actions (EuroScitizen, Citizen Science Cost Action and Alien CSI) will convene for two days to draft a “best practices guide” on how to communicate evolution in citizen science projects. 

The compendium is intended to provide inspiration and guidance  on how to incorporate evolutionary concepts into Citizen Science projects and to design them in order to maximise scientific literacy in evolution. It is meant to encourage evolutionary biologists, museums, NGOs and other stakeholders to either set up new Citizen Science projects or use existing projects to communicate evolutionary topics. 

Please note :  we can only reimburse up to  6 participants

The criteria that will be used to evaluate applications and select participants to reimburse will be:

The criteria that will be used to evaluate and select applications:

  • 0.2 Past level of involvement of the participant in the WG task
  • 0.3 Future level of involvement of the participant in the task.
  • 0.3 Type of profile/expertise in relation to the needs for this task to be completed.
  • 0.2 gender balance, country, career stage of participants of distinct institutions

 

Profiles of people we are especially looking for:

  • Evolutionary biologists with experience in citizen science
  • Evolution education specialists
  • Experience with evolution citizen science projects

 

Organising team:

EuroScitizen COST Action

Tania Jenkins, Swiss Academy of Sciences & Dule Misevic, CRI, Paris, Miriam Brandt, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany 

CS COST Action

Miriam Brandt, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany; 

Laure Kloetzer, Institute of Psychology and Education, Neuchâtel, Switzerland 

Alien CSI COST Action

Quentin Groom (Meise Botanical Garden, Belgium, Alien CSI), Bernat Claramunt (CREAF, Barcelona)