A new published paper investigates how to diversify citizen science through the inclusion of young people. Lead authors Dr Joelene Hughes, Principal Conservation Scientist, and Dr Natasha Constant, Senior Conservation Scientist, explain in today’s blog.
One of the hardest challenges the conservation sector faces is getting new people involved in conservation action. One route is through taking part in citizen science research projects. People involved in citizen science highlight many benefits for themselves and nature conservation of participating. But what would encourage people with no experience of citizen science, and who may have yet to discover an interest in nature, to take part?
In our latest piece of research we discussed this issue with 3 groups of young people: those that take part in environmental citizen science, those that take part in other types of citizen science projects and, in a novel departure from the current evidence base, people who had never taken part in citizen science before.
Citizen science, an “umbrella” term for public participation in science research (see https://www.ecsa.ngo/), is a crucial tool for many research projects, as a way of gathering data across a larger spatial-scale or over a longer time-scale than a research team could manage themselves. Citizen science data has enormously benefitted scientific research on biodiversity, for example contributing to new science in peer-reviewed papers, policy implementation and crucial monitoring work.
Citizen science, like the RSPB's Puffarazzi project, allows for much greater data collection than would be possible solely by the research team (c) Georgia Longmoor
Citizen science can also benefit the individuals involved, contributing to personal and social skills, changing attitudes and behaviours. However, the demographics of people taking part in citizen science does not reflect the general population and there are certain age-, gender-, ethnic- and socio-economic groups that are less involved.
Volunteer Monitoring of Farmland Wildlife
In 2020, a new project, the Volunteer Monitoring of Farmland Wildlife project funded through RSPB and JNCC, was being designed that engaged volunteers to monitor wildlife on farms in England.
An exciting new way of directly linking up farmers, conservationists and the public, one of the challenges the project wanted to meet was how to engage a wider audience, and particularly new young people, in volunteering.
Farmland bird surveyor (c) Colin Wilkinson (rspb-images.com)
Focus groups
Five online, in-person, focus groups were held with people aged 18-29. The groups were a mix of people from rural and urban areas, with two groups for those with environmental citizen science experience, two with other types of citizen science experience and one group of those with no experience.
What does or could motivate people to take part?
A range of social, altruistic and personal aspects motivated people with or without experience to take part in citizen science – learning something new, meeting new and likeminded people, getting outside were all common factors. Matching previous research, career benefits were an important motivator for people that take part in citizen science. However, for people with no citizen science experience, the opportunity to obtain referees and the opportunity for mentorship were key. This mirrored their experiences of benefits from internship positions. Not recognised as a benefit by people taking part in citizen science activities, referees and mentoring opportunities are something that projects may consider adding to get new people to join in.
What stops people taking part?
Conversely, participation in citizen science is limited by a range of barriers. Environmental citizen science projects often have logistical constraints (transport, accommodation) and the unpaid volunteer nature of the activity was seen as a barrier across all groups. Programmatic and organisation issues can discourage people. Projects may discourage those with experience if they are unwelcoming, have a complex application process or lack of clear impact. While those with no citizen science experience may be put off by competitive environments, ineffective management or fear of lone working or safety.
In the challenge to engage new people in citizen science it is also important to get rid of the perception that it is just for older people, advertise locally in places the audience are, and be sensitive to the fact that people feel they may be judged for their lack of skills.
Providing a welcoming environment, fostering a community online of scientists and citizen scientists, while trying to tackle the logistical constraints any environmental citizen science project may have, are key to broadening participation of young people.
What next?
The results of the discussions have already been used to help inform the VMFW project and RSPB volunteering team. A wider discussion with more people who have never taken part in citizen science activities would help build on these results and identify new ways to engage more people. We plan to keep building on this research in the future.
Thank you to all in the VMFW team for their energy and support in this research, the funders Joint Nature Conservation Committee (as part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme) and, vitally, all the participants in the focus groups.
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