September 15th, 2010 - September 16th, 2010 | PROJECT
The National Audubon Society, the National Association of Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Earth Force, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are identifying strategies and supports that move citizen science volunteers up the ladder of engagement from contributory to collaborative to co-creative participants in scientific research. The Citizens, Science, and Conservation project is testing strategies for engaging senior citizens (ages 60+) and underserved youth (ages 16-18) residing in Illinois, North Carolina and California in conservation-focused citizen science projects. This inter-generational project is engaging 45 seniors and 45 youth from three communities located near important bird areas (IBAs) in bird conservation activities and studying how to immerse them together in authentic scientific research. The goals of the project are to (1) learn how to better recruit and sustain deeper relationships with seniors and youth, (2) facilitate the roles seniors and youth can play as collaborators in field research and conservation science, (3) study ways that seniors and young people, as well as scientists and non-scientists, might interact more effectively while in training and in the field, and (4) study the cognitive and affective impacts of such collaborations upon both volunteers and professionals. Evaluation data on implementation, impact, and scale-up are being collected on three comparison groups of citizen scientists (new, core, and model). Audubon plans to disseminate a plan for implementing senior-youth paired collaborative and co-created citizen science programs to 2,100+ IBA programs in 42 states, 50+ nature centers and its 480 local chapters.
Project Website(s)
(no project website provided)
Project Products
Citizens, Science and Conservation
Team Members
Judy Braus, Principal Investigator, National Audubon SocietyThomas Bancroft, Co-Principal Investigator, National Audubon Society
Funders
Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: ISE/AISL
Award Number: 1010609
Funding Amount: 249990
Tags
Audience: Evaluators | Museum | ISE Professionals | Scientists | Seniors | Youth | Teen (up to 17)
Discipline: Ecology | forestry | agriculture | Education and learning science | Life science | Nature of science
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Citizen Science Programs | Public Programs