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CITIZEN SCIENCE
motivates you to speak up
Nature enthusiasts do surveys, city dwellers map air pollution, people classify photos of galaxies through the Internet and patients share expe- riences about their health and disease symptoms. All these are examples of citizen science.
Citizen science helps make science more open, clear and effective. This has been quite wide- spread in the world, but in Estonia it is just get- ting started. The researchers of Tallinn Univer- sity have been contributing a lot to this research field in recent years.
In the coming years, the researchers will monitor cooperation between the university, school and society within the project “Klass+”. The goal is to create a citizen science competence centre.
As the result of “Klass+”, schools carry out citi- zen science projects in which their own school students are involved in different stages, coop- erating with other schools, researchers and the society while doing so. To manage these citizen science projects, we will continue developing
the platform Avastusrada with the support of SA Keskkonnainvesteeringute Keskus. Everyone has the opportunity to start citizen science projects and participate in other projects on the platform.
In the geographical spots of Avastusrada you can collect data, for example, measure the noise level or temperature with a smartphone or carry out nature observations. Afterwards, everyone has the option to analyse the data and draw conclusions.
However at the university level, the researchers of Tallinn University participate in an interna- tional Erasmus+ project called “Integrating open and citizen science into active learning approach- es in higher education” (INOS) during which open science and citizen science activities are integrated into the university level studies.
For example, this is done through hackathons, workshops, knowledge cafes, etc.
Regular people are often only involved in sci- ence and data collection stages even though they could be involved more broadly. For example, in setting problem and research ques- tions, data collection planning, data analysis and discussion of results. This results in an open society with active citizens.
Citizen science (kodanikuteadus) was created by Alan Irin in 1995, whose purpose was to bring together science and the public and help involve more regular citizens in discussions and decisions on environmental problems.
Researcher Külli Kori,
associate professor of educational technology Kai Pata
TALLINN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE / NO. 14 / SPRING 2020
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