Citizen science is when ordinary people help with scientific research, e.g. within biodiversity, molecular biology and astronomy. At Artdatabanken, which is an organization that observes biodiversity, citizen science is used to enable data gathering of species in Sweden. Previous research has investigated how to maintain long-term engagement by observing motivation for citizen scientists regardless of skill-levels. In this study, the motivations of experienced citizen scientists are investigated. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with citizen scientists at Artdatabanken, and thematic analysis was used to find themes in the answers.  The participants were open both to increase contributions and to report other species. The results showed mainly extrinsic motivations, which could be due to a lack of reflection of intrinsic motivation. Three main themes were found in the interviews. The first theme, Efficiency, was connected to usability-issues, mainly focusing on time-efficiency and simplifying the reporting tool. The acknowledgement-theme involved motivation to receive recognition for the contributions. The third theme, Knowledge and Understanding, was connected to motivation for increased knowledge regarding species and data. Some suggestions for implementation are presented to make the motivations feasible for design implementations of citizen science systems.

Changes in climate result in wide-ranging economic impacts, especially for businesses that rely on consistent weather patterns. The North Carolina ski resorts (Beech Mountain Ski Resort, Appalachian Ski Resort, Sugar Mountain Ski Resort, Wolf Ridge Ski Resort, Cataloochee Ski Area, and Sapphire Valley Ski Area) are the southernmost resorts on the east coast in the US. They are able to stay in business because of the diverse terrain and elevation of the Appalachian Mountains where they can see low record temperatures of -34°F. Observable increases in temperature and less snowfall accumulations generate concern for these businesses that rely not only on snow but temperatures low enough to produce their own snow. To understand what may happen in the future, it is pertinent to examine past and ongoing trends. Yearly snowfall data from fall 2010 to spring 2018 were obtained from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and interpolated using ordinary kriging. Teleconnections (Arctic Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation) were examined to help compare similar years to observe possible relationships. The stations that had data for all of the years observed were spatially analyzed through regression kriging (RK) to determine how climate change will affect those areas. A kernel density map was then created from active CoCoRaHS stations to observe which areas need more stations to generate better interpolation data for future years. The results are impactful for the ski resorts, helping them to make effective business decisions based on climate trends and to promote the use of citizen science to improve research efforts.

Experiential, outdoor education supports improvement in students’ problem-solving skills; collaboration and communication skills; and enjoyment in learning in the outdoors. Outdoor instruction is becoming increasingly underutilized. A residential environmental education center, located in Tennessee has conducted professional development programs in effort to increase teacher implementation of instruction in outdoor spaces. This institute revealed concern for low implementation rates to past professional development opportunities. Their newly designed, long-term professional development explored teacher’s perceived challenges and needs, then combined effective experiential pedagogy in outdoor spaces with pre-established communities of support from the participating schools in effort to contribute to experiential, outdoor instruction reform. This program entailed four workshop meetings over a seven-month time span, producing over 50 hours of face-toace contact during the training. Program leaders designed the learning experience to include effective professional development strategies; reflective assignments; and activities that related to citizen science, experiential learning, and science and engineering practices found in the recently adopted Tennessee State Science Standards. This study identified concepts of the planned, delivered, and received curricula of the workshop series to define the intentions, methodologies, and impact of the experience. The intentions of the program were aligned to the delivered curricula then the impact of the program was considered. Data collected during this qualitative study included over 15 hours of interviews; over 110 hours of observation field notes; and various artifacts including journals, handouts and applications. This long-term professional development provided a pre-established community of practice and advocated for experiential instruction in outdoor spaces; eliminating barriers; improving teacher confidence and implementation of knowledge gained; and reinforcing the professional development experience.

Has years of citizen-based nutrient sampling and baseline water quality monitoring efforts only had a "trivial" impact on natural resource management decisions? This thesis will explore this and other findings from a qualitative evaluation of the Rock River Coalition (RRC) citizen-based stream monitoring project in Dane County, Wisconsin, USA. These findings are the culmination of 47 semi-structured interviews with decision-makers from seven client-identified categories and participant observations of board meetings and other watershed groups. Interview questions focused on current strategies of data design and dissemination with the goal of constructing a clearer picture of existing data usage by Dane County decision-makers. In the wider picture of citizen science and community-based research, this case study aims to highlight barriers to data use and potential solutions. The results of this case study were understood through four key frames: (1) Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital, (2) Barzilai‐Nahon's theory of network gatekeeping, (3) Newman et al.'s framework for leveraging the power of place, and (4) a Foucauldian approach to the production of scientific knowledge. The findings of this study highlight the presence of gatekeeping mechanisms within the scientific field as well as government institutions, problematize the practice of placemaking, assert there is untapped symbolic capital to be wielded by citizen scientists, and trace the "innovation" of volunteer water monitoring data in Dane County.

Over the last century anadromous alewife (Alosa psuedoharengus) and blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis), collectively called river herring, suffered drastic declines throughout their range from Newfoundland (Canada) to North Carolina (USA). A 2011 petition to include river herring in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was rejected, partly due to inadequate information towards identifying coast-wide population status. Additionally, knowledge gaps were identified with basic ecology of the river herring life cycle in freshwater, including species reproductive strategies. In Chapter 2, I investigated how body size, spawning arrival time, and sex influence river herring reproductive success. I collaborated with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to introduce adult river herring (421, 266, and 410 individuals in 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively) into Pentucket Pond (Massachusetts, USA), which historically had river herring but is currently inaccessible to upstream migrants. Using fin clips from stocked adult fish and juveniles collected in the lake each summer, I genotyped individuals and constructed pedigrees with 15 microsatellites. River herring had small (mean =1.1) families and spawned multiple times with multiple mates from May to June. Females were more successful than males. Earlier arrival and larger body size were independent indicators of reproductive success. These results provide critical river herring life history information for the freshwater component of population models that will inform management of this at-risk species. Presently, most river herring populations are monitored using data from citizen counts of spawning adults entering freshwater. Involving citizen watershed groups in data collection and may provide ancillary benefits beyond collection of population-level count data. In Chapter 3, I used pre-and post-surveys to assess how involvement in one citizen monitoring program influenced participants’ environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Participants began the program with high scores for broader scientific and pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors. After the program, participants reported increased connection to nature, citizen science involvement, river herring knowledge, and engagement in outdoor recreation. For participants, engagement with nature was the most important program benefit. These results provide an additional case study to the citizen science literature and demonstrate that citizen science programs can help participants connect with the environment.

Cultural heritage makes reference to an extremely diverse set of sources. More specifically, historical artifacts as well as intangible elements of a community’s history, pertain to cultural heritage. However, when looking at the conservation, the enrichment, and the divulgation of these elements, the question becomes more complex. Even more so, when a context of nebulous regulation, unequal distribution of resources and funding of cultural heritage institutions, as well as a bureaucratically complex division of competencies between territories, are present. This is the case in Italy, and more specifically, Southern and Central Italy, where all these issues are present, and further hinder the exploration of undiscovered historical material, as well as the organization and divulgation of discovered material.  Following this discrepancy along the lines of legal and practical restrictions, this thesis aims to explore and evaluate how technology can obviate to said issues. For instance, a methodological exercise was endeavored by scanning some ancient texts, in Latin and in Old Italian, and by running an optical character recognition software on the latter.  More specifically, this thesis applies the paradigm of citizen science for crowdsourcing to explore how well optical character recognition software works in terms of accessibility and efficiency. As such, this methodological exercise does not consist primarily of a technological evaluation but aims at opening up new ways for the public to interact with cultural heritage institutions, for exchanging historical information while respecting the legal and practical considerations that were mentioned. In conclusion, by highlighting this issue, it would be possible to further research and enrich the publicly available data on Italian educational history between the 18th and the 19th Century.

High school science teachers require increased skills in science research literacy, so that their students develop research competencies in the classroom (Evans, Warning, & Christodoulou, 2017; Udompong, Traiwichitkhun, & Wongwanich, 2014). For teachers to promote a scientific atmosphere, literature points to training that fosters authentic spaces in the school setting. Working in collaboration with scientists offers teachers ways to scaffold laboratory experiences that address the needs of their students and models scientific communication and behaviors (www.nextgenscience.org/faqs). This research includes creating and sustaining long term collaborations between scientists and teachers while also identifying professional development that enables both laboratory research and science education. Applying science research literacy skills will empower teacher to meet the challenges set by national standards, through which science laboratory experiments in secondary education classrooms necessitate teachers to embrace new methods of lesson delivery and identify organic points, in the required curriculum, for the incorporation of authentic scientific inquiry (Ufnar & Shepherd, 2018). Observing and interacting, with the participants throughout the various levels of immersive I anticipate creating enhanced programming, science teacher PD’s, and workshops that will enable science teachers, both face-to-face and via virtual-hybrid programs, to impart the sense of being in a lab to their students while bringing authentic research activities to life during classroom inquiry. This promotes culturally relevant experiences within the context of the scientific one. Ideal subjects for this study will be in-service science teachers in possession of a minimum Bachelor’s degree. Subject matter and experience in research science is not a disqualifier. However, interest in life science, biological science, health science, environmental science, or biochemistry will be required. Through ethnographic research, the cultural forms, values, and practices that are essential to the cultural reproduction of scientific research literacy will be documented. I will engage in this research as an ethnographer and having the role of active observer, analyzing cultural behaviors (Brandt & Carlone, 2012; Camarata, et al., 2017) and the development of science research literacy of science teachers following engagement with professional research scientists during immersive professional development programs. Ethnographic research will allow me to uncover the practices as I experience the process along with the participants and while my research will be conducted through an ethnographic lens, writing will be included as to acknowledge the work as a case study bounded by the shared experience and context of the participants. Moreover, following the proposed research, teachers could enact a swift change in science classroom culture, by embracing a more scientific one (Erickson, 1984). / Math & Science Education

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Yes / Whole-systems approaches are being adopted to tackle physical inactivity. The mechanisms contributing to changes resulting from whole-systems approaches are not fully understood. The voices of children and families that these approaches are designed for need to be heard to understand what is working, for whom, where and in what context. This paper describes the protocol for the children and families' citizen science evaluation of the Join Us: Move, Play (JU:MP) programme, a whole-systems approach to increasing physical activity in children and young people aged 5-14 years in Bradford, UK. The evaluation aims to understand the lived experiences of children and families' relationship with physical activity and participation in the JU:MP programme. The study takes a collaborative and contributory citizen science approach, including focus groups, parent-child dyad interviews and participatory research. Feedback and data will guide changes within this study and the JU:MP programme. We also aim to examine participant experience of citizen science and the suitability of a citizen science approach to evaluate a whole-systems approach. Data will be analysed using framework approach alongside iterative analysis with and by citizen scientists in the collaborative citizen science study. Ethical approval has been granted by the University of Bradford: study one (E891-focus groups as part of the control trial, E982-parent-child dyad interviews) and study two (E992). Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and summaries will be provided to the participants, through schools or directly. The citizen scientists will provide input to create further dissemination opportunities.

The need to better comprehend the relationship between societies and the hydrological cycle led scientists to develop sophisticated mathematical models in order to predict how these relationships will be in the future. However, some transformations might not be predicted in such socio-hydrological models, what makes necessary to search for new methods to build scenarios. In this way, the present work seeks to understand how societies will change the way they deal with water resources regarding different drivers of change, such as population growth, changes in climate, land cover, patterns of consumption and influence of governmental institutions. To do so, this work employs not only official data sets that are public available, but also information provided by citizens through citizen observatories concepts of crowdsourcing, participatory governance and environmental monitoring. Such volunteered information is based on their own experiences, knowledge and individual patterns regarding water management and sanitation aspects from the study area, São Carlos city. The conclusions reveal that the new tool presented in this work, the Socio-Hydrological Observatory for Water Security (SHOWS), makes possible to outline future trajectories of coevolution in coupled human-water system and provide assessment on water security scenarios. This work integrates the water security component facing climate changes, from INCT-MC2 (FAPESP 2014/50848-9), contributes to better comprehend socio hydrological aspects in UK Academies (FAPESP 2018/03473-0) and provides a new tool, the SHOWS, which assists decision makers in resilient cities, in the context of CEPID/CEMEAI (FAPESP 2011/51305-0) e do SPRINT-Warwick (FAPESP 2018/08413-6). At international level, it is a contribution to the activities of \"Panta Rhei – Everything Flows 2013-2022\", promoted by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences, which seeks to understand, estimate and predict the hydrological dynamics to support societies under change. / A necessidade de compreender as relações entre as sociedades e o ciclo hidrológico levou cientistas a elaborarem sofisticados modelos matemáticos para prever como estas relações serão no futuro. Porém, determinadas transformações podem não ser previstas nestes modelos sócio-hidrológicos, sendo necessário recorrer a novos métodos para elaborar cenários. Desta maneira, o presente trabalho busca entender como as sociedades irão modificar a maneira que lidam com os recursos hídricos frente aos vetores de mudanças, como crescimento demográfico, alterações climáticas, mudanças do uso e ocupação do solo, influência de instituições governamentais e padrões de consumo da população. Para isto, este trabalho emprega não somente o uso de dados oficiais, disponibilizados em plataformas públicas, mas também as informações fornecidas por cidadãos através dos conceitos dos observatórios cidadãos, como crowdsourcing, governança participativa e monitoramento ambiental. Estas informações voluntárias são baseadas em suas experiências, conhecimentos e padrões individuais em relação a aspectos necessários a gestão dos recursos hídricos e dos sistemas de saneamento da área de estudo, o município de São Carlos. Ao fim, conclui-se que, a partir da ferramenta Observatório Sócio Hidrológico para Segurança Hídrica (SHOWS), é possível interpretar possíveis trajetórias de coevolução entre os sistemas sociais e naturais de maneira a avaliar os cenários de segurança hídrica. Este estudo integra a componente de segurança hídrica frente às mudanças climáticas do INCT-MC2 (FAPESP 2014/50848-9), contribui para a compreensão dos aspectos sócio hidrológicos do UK Academies (FAPESP 2018/03473-0), além de testar uma nova ferramenta, o SHOWS, que serve de auxílio à tomada de decisão em cidades resilientes, no contexto do CEPID/CEMEAI (FAPESP 2011/51305-0) e do SPRINT-Warwick (FAPESP 2018/08413-6). Em âmbito internacional, é uma contribuição às atividades da década científica \"Panta Rhei – Everything Flows 2013-2022\", promovida pela International Association of Hydrological Sciences, a qual busca entender, estimar e prever dinâmicas hidrológicas para apoiar sociedades sob mudanças.