Network of educators and trainers: interviews
Cléa Montanari
April 9, 2025, 9:10 a.m.
The Network of Trainers and Educators of the ECS Academy in Citizen Science has a very active role in the creation of the Academy itself, and helps to identify training needs, co-design workshops and the roadmap to the Academy. Here, we hear in their own words what this experience means to some of them, and what their role has been and will be in shaping the ECA Academy.
Interview with Chiara Fedrigotti network member,
28th of March, 2025
From the MUSE museum.
Italy, Trento
MUSE, Trento (ph: Matteo de Stefano)
The natural history museum of Trento (MUSE) has a long standing history with citizen science. Being a natural history museum - the collection was created by the contribution of several amateurs. The MUSE museum has an interdisciplinary approach to the alpine ecosystem that surrounds them. They are in contact with people that live in the valley, exchange with them their knowledge and listen to them to understand something new.
MUSE’s first group of nature lovers was born in the 90s. They have been collaborating with the museum's research group for a long time. They are called the ‘research volunteers’ as they have special skills in ornithology. They collaborate with MUSE to do ornithological recording and collecting data about birds.
MUSE museum, however, only became familiar with the term Citizen Science around 2015-2016; when they were approached by institutions that worked in this field (e.g. Maremma natural history museum, and other institutions in Italy). They started to be involved in the Italian citizen science network, now the Italian Citizen Science Association.
MUSE citizen science training
Training 1 for teachers.
Audience: Teachers at primary to high school level and kindergarten teachers. They host about 20-25 participants per course.
Time duration: The course is 10 hours long and is split in 2 days (often during the weekend to meet teachers schedule).
Content: In brief: Basic training on citizen science; what it is and what is the potential of the approach when included in school curriculum. With theoretical and practical content.
The MUSe museum offers both theoretical and practical content. The theoretical content includes a historical introduction to citizen science, and explains how a current definition of citizen science came to be. MUSE museum explains the 10 principles of citizen science outlined by ECSA which characterizes citizen science. This is to make sure that participants understand what citizen science is and is not. The theoretical part also explores with the participants the potential of citizen science as an informal approach to education. How citizen science can be included in terms of objectives and skills within their scholar program. Some skills that are brought forward are students gaining technological and relational skills. Citizen science is promoted as a tool that creates a class that is more united and that includes pupils and students that have learning difficulties with writing or reading, as citizen science represents a more hands on approach to learning.
The practical aspect of the course offers teachers to test some citizen science applications. For example a mini-bioblitz is organised with iNaturalist (an application for biodiversity recordings).
Training 2 for teachers.
In this case teachers are already interested in the topic and know of citizen science - they generally have done the first training.
This training offers teachers to specialise on specific citizen science projects that are managed by the MUSE museum (e.g. mosquito alert, fresh water watch, cross pollination, school of ants. Find all projects here). Teachers have generally decided that they would like to participate in one of the projects. The training, trains the teachers in all the activities specific to the citizen science project of interest. The museums give them advice on how to include the project in their school curricula, in many different subjects (e.g. science teacher - include the topic of the project in arts, in italian; giving them some advice and possible approaches to do this).
In addition it is “Now two years that we host teachers in our museum staff- 1 year period!”
School teachers can take a sabbatical year and the museums offer the teachers to work at the museum for a year. The museums together with them build new experiences, tools (pedagogies), activities in scientific subjects. Teachers are creative and find ways to link different subjects. Some teachers are particularly engaged with citizen science during their sabbatical year. They
focus their whole year of immersion on citizen science.
“We had a science teacher- that used to be a PhD student (with very high research skills in relation to aquatic environments) who helped the museum in creating new activities for schools related to aquatic environments. Also the teacher was involved in our activities (e.g. bioblitz).”
Resources:
Citizen Science webpage of MUSE museum: https://www.muse.it/home/partecipa/collabora-con-la-ricerca/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkZm_BhDrARIsAAEbX1HU-pXsYCmtxCPhFDyyopCAZ65SUJbmUuyNoThiQFB1l8wOpYtivAAaAjerEALw_wcB
Teachers training: https://ilmuseperlascuola.muse.it/docenti/incontri-formativi-e-di-aggiornamento/#
Field sheets and identification guides are the website - all material for activities.
Training for general citizens
Topic: Citizen Science programs dedicated to protected areas / About 25 participants.
URL: https://www.muse.it/cs4nature-la-citizen-science-per-le-aree-protette-del-trentino-2024/
In 2024 the museum organised two trainings that were dedicated to Natura2000 species and RedList species identification. “We are trying to involve people to collect more data on this group of species- especially in the invertebrate world.”
Two trainings focused on butterflies and dragonflies. The first day of training an introduction to the insect group was organised, to explain their biology, ecology, and to show the species of interest. On the second day, a trip was organised, in the field, to show and explain how to collect the data (i.e. how to take a good photo, how to record the observations correctly) to ensure quality of data. This experience was useful for the museum as they met very enthusiastic people that they did not have the occasion to meet before at the museum. This became an opportunity to invite new people into MUSE which is particularly important for the museum. Interesting scientific data was also obtained from the volunteers that took part in the training. New observations were made about two species, one that is very endangered in the province of Trento, and a new species that is expanding from Southern Italy. A success story from this point of view.
What MUSE museum is currently doing: Trying to integrate citizen science in service learning experience requirements for students (i.e. students as part of their curriculum have to do something practical with their communities, a social point of view).
Their experience: Biosphere in my backyard. Promoted with UNESCO biosphere reserve in Trento. Involved 4 high school classes that chose a green area where they will do biodiversity friendly interventions. At the same time they will monitor biodiversity, before and after interventions. Students are very happy to take part in this. High school students asked their teacher to join the project. In one of the cases, high school students are interacting with people with Alzheimer's - they have planned to plant colourful plants in the garden with an intense smell to make these people have experience with colours and scents, as a technique to move their memories. They will improve biodiversity but also provide something interesting for the guests of the environment. Financial support is from the biosphere reserve.
Interview with Cristina Castracani, network member, from University of Parma
April 3rd 2025
Fiorenza Spotti, Maria Vittoria Zucchelli, Cristina Castracani and the Antbox
A bit about Cristina Castracani.
Cristina is an ethologist (study of animal behaviour), a research assistant and adjunct professor at the University di Parma, in Parma Italy.
Cristina created a course on citizen science for third year undergraduate students in the Natural Science department. However this course is a non-mandatory course for bachelor students, and has a ‘soft skills’ label that opens the course for students from different disciplines. All bachelor degree students at the university of parma from different disciplines and master students can choose this course.
The route to developing a course at University of Parma on citizen science * A success story
The school of ants project (see link here; https://ilmuseperlascuola.muse.it/docenti/incontri-formativi-e-di-aggiornamento/school-of-ants-a-scuola-con-le-formiche/) (about 10 years ago) started Cristina’s relationship with citizen science.
Cristina started when she went to Copenhagen for a conference on social insects, her field of expertise. She met a professor from North Carolina State University that created the first schools of ants project in the United States. Cristina, with colleagues, started the school of ants in Parma, as a pilot in a couple of schools.
To bring this project at a national level, Cristina and her colleagues understood that they needed to increase their collaboration. They started a collaboration with MUSE museum, where together they started to develop new materials, to make the project bigger. This was of interest to Cristina and her colleagues, to map the distribution of ants. An ant box was developed (see picture above), a box for teachers with all the material to collect scientific data, and tools for didactic purposes, specifically developed for teachers.
The idea is to involve the students and teachers in the whole project. “We developed a specific key for the recognition of ants, an instrument generally used in our lab, but we transformed it so that it became more suitable for teachers and students.”
The engagement of teachers and students in this project, and scientific inquiry helped teachers and students understand that it is difficult to do these observations and why it is important to specialise. The school of ant project is not necessarily useful for the collection of data, but a very interesting collaboration with the MUSE museum. This collaboration allowed us to recruit schools at the national level.
“Thanks to this project, I went to one of the first European Citizen Science Association Conferences (ECSA Conference) about 10 years ago. I met many other Italian members.”
Cristina’s big desire is to introduce citizen science in ethology , the study of animal behaviour. Cristina would like to understand how to use it. “It is not extremely easy, as the data collection of behavioural data can be more difficult than biodiversity data. You have to understand how you can do it, what you can ask the citizens and what you can not ask.”
Interest in citizen science was growing at University of Parma since the Italian ministry started to evaluate universities according to their third mission, which is everything that a university does in connection with their territory and external stakeholders.
These evaluations come every 5 years. So about 5 years ago, the ministry asked universities to collect a number of projects connected to the third mission that could be evaluated by the ministry. School of ants was selected as one of these projects. From this period onwards, the university started to consider citizen science as something that could be interesting. Cristina was asked to develop a lesson, which resulted in the citizen science undergraduate course!
The first edition of the course was in 2023. It has now run twice - with about 20 students in each course, asking to do a thesis on citizen science. Cristina sends some of her students to colleagues at the Citizen Science Italian Association.
Relevance of citizen science for Cristina as a researcher
Cristina was a researcher that understood the usefulness of citizen science for researchers. Because you are in relation to other stakeholders it is possible and useful!
Citizen science is not the answer for all scientific problems we have. It is a method that can be used like any other methods- what are the limits and what are the potentialities.
Cristina started citizen science as Cristina found in citizen science a useful tool “a researcher like me which does not have a lot of resources. My field of study is not a very attractive field of study, resources in terms of money and possibilities are not expensive. So the first thing which interested me in citizen science is this. Then when I started working in citizen science, there is a very important connection that you have to create with all the stakeholders, you have to find a common language. I found in citizen science, a very true way to get in contact with the general public, which I believe is very important- as in Italy and perhaps abroad we have this idea that researchers are in this big tower- and with citizen science I had the possibility to narrow this gap- as citizens can understand what we do. We also understand them, and communication becomes easier.”
“Citizen science is another method to come in contact with the general public. We let them do what we do- so it is easier to explain what we are doing!”
Cristina found a new community, and it was very interesting.
The ECSA conference in Berlin was very useful for Cristina as it opened her eyes, as in this type of conference there are many different kind of people, as it is interdisciplinary (i.e. generally when you go to conferences, they are subject specific, and so you speak the same language, and talk about the same topic).
In these slides https://zenodo.org/records/14168869 (in Italian) Cristina presented during a course for researchers in biodiversity about the integration of citizen science techniques in scientific research.
“I think researchers need to learn what CS is and how they can use it and I think this is another important aspect to reach institutional (university) transformation.”