The overall concept of the Citizen Science for Education in Sustainable Development (CS4ESD) project is to provide innovative ICT-based tools to enable teachers to more effectively educate children across Europe in issues relating to sustainable development. We propose to leverage technical advances in highly available mobile devices (principally smartphones and tablets) to provide tools that enable teachers to more easily engage their pupils in citizen science type activities tailored to their local environment. By engaging pupils with powerful technology they are familiar with and enthusiastic about using, we will encourage greater citizenship, participation and awareness of the local environment. Our main target groups in CS4ESD are schools and universities who will work with Biosphere Reserves in each participating region. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) proved an excellent vehicle for conducting citizen science related projects with an international dimension. The SDG’s are influencing policy at all levels; local, regional, national, European and global. Across our regions we have identified a lack of tools suitable for today’s digitally minded young people and recognise a need for: -innovative citizen science tools for education directly related to the range of SDG’s -flexible ICT tools that allow educators to easily create citizen science surveys that can be adapted to local conditions -associated educational material that can adapted to meet various lesson plan and curricular requirements -ability to share results and associated material with other educational institutions This collaborative project enables us to work across countries to meet common goals. Developing global competences in all participants. Citizen Science is about the involvement of the public in scientific research. In this project teachers and pupils will work with professional scientists to gather data, assist with research for the love of science, their local environment and the betterment of their community. The proliferation in mobile devices over the last few years has had significant impact on citizen science, ordinary members of the public now have daily access to the means of capturing data of use for science, we aim to capitalise on this ease of access and enthusiasm for mobile technology to motivate and engage young people throughout this project. STEM subjects are recognised across Europe as urgent areas of development in schools. In recent years employment in STEM related jobs has risen by 12%, three times more than overall employment in the EU. Yet with PISA data showing that more than 1 in 5 fifteen year olds in Europe are not functionally literate in reading, maths and science, employers are finding it difficult to recruit young people with the right skills. Through a combination of targeted activities young learners will learn about SDGs, contribute to data collection, participate in creating digital media and develop global competences, preparing them for 21st Century Europe, equipped with the right skills to take them into their future.
CS4ESD was a three-year Erasmus+ project and a collaboration between high schools and universities in Greece, the Basque Country in Spain and Wales in the UK. We aimed to develop global citizens in our teaching, and students that understand what sustainable development means and how we all, as global citizens, can contribute; the project was founded on education around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). CS4ESD aimed to enable learning and develop appreciation around the importance of environmental data, how we collect it, how we share, what we can do with it and how we can re-use it to better understand our planet, to better manage our planet to leave it in a better state for the next generation of learners. A key component of CS4ESD will be the use of mobile devices as part of the learning experience – these can be smart phones or tablets for example and are great for engaging with young people, in the outdoors as they learn about the natural environment and the data needed to understand and manage the environment in way that reflects the SDGs.Through this Citizen Science for Education in Sustainable Development (CS4ESD) project we aimed to develop an innovative, interactive ICT-based tools that enabled teachers and young people to participate in citizen science effectively. The tools are designed to educate young people across Europe, and beyond, in sustainable development and issues surrounding the future of our planet. CS4ESD harnesses the KoboToolBox platform, developed by Harvard University, to create ‘Forms’ or questionnaires to provide tools that enable teachers to more easily engage their pupils in citizen science type activities tailored to their local environment. Throughout this project we have engaged pupils to use and understand the technology and become enthusiastic about investigating and contributing to citizen science projects. We have worked with schools and universities in 3 regions, each neighbouring a Biosphere Reserve. Prior to starting this project, we had identified a lack of easy-to-use tools suitable for digitally minded young people. We aimed to fill this gap by developing a citizen science tool which met a range of criteria set by participating organisations. This collaborative project enables us to work across countries to meet common goals. We wanted our tools to be: -innovative, for education purposes, and directly related to the range of SDG’s - flexible, an ICT tool that could be adapted to local conditions - easy to use and allowed educators to easily create citizen science surveys - supported by educational materials developed by educators and which could be adapted to meet lesson plans and curricular requirements in a wide range of different contexts -adaptable giving users the flexibilty to share results and other materials developed with other educational institutions