Youth environmental science learning and agency: A unifying lens across community and citizen science settings

This study addresses an existing gap in our understanding of how participation in environmental Community and Citizen Science (CCS) projects may impact young volunteers’ environmental science learning across a wide variety of settings. We examined youth learning across four settings which we represented as cases: 5 short-term field-based events (BioBlitzes), 3 longer-term field-based monitoring programs, fully online projects (Zooniverse), and a hybrid format that combines participation in the field and online spaces (iNaturalist). This multiple-case study uses the Environmental Science Agency framework to interpret learning evidence of 33 young CCS volunteers (aged 10-13 years) in post-participation surveys, semi-structured interviews, and in ethnographic field notes for the field-based participants. Across the cases, we found particular features of the CCS projects and the scientific framings that may have encouraged aspects of ESA. Design features such as access to new knowledge, training, and scientific tools provided by the CCS projects encouraged youth to learn rich and varied understandings of disciplinary content, scientific skills and practices. An increased sense of confidence and competence in youth around the scientific practices of the projects were stimulated by scientific framing of CSS and ongoing participation. Overall, these aspects also supported small manifestations of youth agency with science

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

Investment in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing in Africa over the past year has led to a major increase in the number of sequences generated, now exceeding 100,000 genomes, used to track the pandemic on the continent. Our results show an increase in the number of African countries able to sequence domestically, and highlight that local sequencing enables faster turnaround time and more regular routine surveillance. Despite limitations of low testing proportions, findings from this genomic surveillance study underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic and shed light on the distinct dispersal dynamics of Variants of Concern, particularly Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron, on the continent. Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve, while the continent faces many emerging and re-emerging infectious disease threats. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance.

Investment in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing in Africa over the past year has led to a major increase in the number of sequences that have been generated and used to track the pandemic on the continent, a number that now exceeds 100,000 genomes. Our results show an increase in the number of African countries that are able to sequence domestically and highlight that local sequencing enables faster turnaround times and more-regular routine surveillance. Despite limitations of low testing proportions, findings from this genomic surveillance study underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic and illuminate the distinct dispersal dynamics of variants of concern-particularly Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron-on the continent. Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve while the continent faces many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Partnering science education research and citizen science practice: lessons from using a design-based research approach in the informal learning setting of natural history museums

Applied learning research has the potential to inform project design, enhance outcomes and drive best practices in Community and Citizen Science (CCS). However, educational research typically examines the learning processes and outcomes for participants in CCS by treating the venues and practitioners as a ‘study site’, with little input to research design from practitioners. Traditional “top-down” research approaches may not account for the real-world trade-offs made in CCS programming and delivery, so that research findings may be unrealistic or inaccessible for practitioners, and researchers may miss opportunities to inform practice. “Research-Practice” partnerships, attempt to address this gap. But how do such researcher-practitioner collaborations work in practice? What benefits, risks, challenges, and successes are emerging? Here we share the experiences of the LEARN CitSci team - an interdisciplinary, international collaboration of educational researchers and CCS practitioners across two research institutions and four informal science institutions (three museums and two online platforms). The research is focused on participants aged 5-19 years in three CCS settings: long-term monitoring projects, BioBlitz events, and online/mobile-enabled crowdsourcing projects. This four-year project is applying a mixed-methods approach to 1) characterise the settings and participation, 2) capture the development of participants’ knowledge, skills, and agency, and 3) identify and promote the key design features in CCS projects that could foster learning processes. The team has implemented several novel approaches to bridge the research-practice gap: A staff member with a practitioner background is embedded full-time within each museum in a role that spans CCS practice and educational research. They receive training in qualitative research methods, collect data and contribute to analysis. The University-based researchers and a Museum-embedded researcher collaborate entirely on every aspect of the research design and train the above staff. We apply a design-based research (DBR) approach (Bakker, 2018) to iteratively study and co-design for learning across projects and settings. The researchers and practitioners communicate almost constantly to embed the real-life experiences of the CCS programme teams within the research. While the first phase of the LEARN CitSci project focused on collecting data on different settings to understand youth learning in CCS projects, the second phase - and this presentation - is centred on the use of DBR to develop new program design features based on research findings. We present the opportunities and challenges for research-practitioner partnerships of co-designing programme features that contribute to youth learning with the DBR approach. The collaborative process of DBR includes the co-creation of conjecture maps, which describe how programme features should function to produce intended learning outcomes (Sandoval, 2014) for implementation in any of the informal science learning programs or settings. Such concrete artifacts have provided an invaluable framework through which the research informs practice and vice versa. With time, and a common understanding of DBR terminology, the DBR process seems to concretely support practitioners’ desire to improve their programs with research-based evidence and provide researchers with a unique opportunity to systematically examine a common approach to informal science education (through facilitated participation in citizen science) for multiple settings

Perspectives on a researcher-practitioner partnership: Our role as practitioner researchers studying youth learning through participation in NHM-led citizen science

The Learning and Environmental Science Agency Research Network for Citizen Science (LEARN CitSci) brings together practitioners and researchers from The University of California, Davis; California Academy of Sciences; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; The Natural History Museum, London; The Open University; and The University of Oxford. Through close collaboration between education researchers and natural history museums (NHMs), we aim to answer key questions about youth participation and learning in citizen science. The Project Coordination Officers (PCOs) play a key role, with one PCO based at each of the three NHMs. Each PCO works as a “practitioner researcher”, collecting field-based educational research data and facilitating collaboration between the museums and the university researchers. Here we provide an overview of the LEARN CitSci study design and analytical framework, highlighting the unique perspective of the PCOs. The LEARN CitSci team is studying the learning outcomes of youth participating in three citizen science settings: 1) long-term monitoring projects, 2) short-term BioBlitz events, and 3) online projects. Our project asks: What types of participation activities do young people engage in; How do they learn through their participation in citizen science? And, How can programme settings in NHM-led citizen science be designed to foster environmental science learning outcomes? Using the Environmental Science Agency (ESA) framework [1] adapted from Basu and Calabrese Barton’s [2] concept of Critical Science Agency, we are investigating young people’s “ability to use experiences in environmental science to make positive changes in one’s life, landscape and community.” The development of ESA can be observed as: - Deepening understanding of environmental science content and practice. - Identifying an area of one’s own expertise in environmental science. - Using experiences in community and citizen science as a foundation for change. We use qualitative research methods, including youth observations, ethnographic field notes, interviews, and surveys, to characterize the settings and participation activities in each programme. We aim to capture learning processes and to identify how program features in NHM-led citizen science projects foster or hinder the development of ESA. The voices and experiences of youth participants in citizen science programs are central to this research. The NHMs are collaborating with Community-Based Organizations which support underrepresented groups of youth, in an effort to address equity and social justice in community and citizen science. This poster discussed the challenges and triumphs of the PCO role, such as : Observing youth impartially while embedded in programming Working with our theoretical framework as novice researchers Developing a shared understanding of constructs like learning and agency across diverse contexts Developing new program design features based on research findings Cultivating communication and mutually beneficial collaborations with Community-Based Organization

Enhancing youth learning through Community and Citizen Science: a guide for practitioners

This guide was designed to support practitioners running Community and Citizen Science programmes and similar informal science learning activities. It shares the finding and recommendations of the LEARN CitSci research study, which explored the learning processes and outcomes for young people aged 5–19 years who participated in Community and Citizen Science projects. This guide can be freely distributed in its original form for non-commercial purposes. All content is the copyright of the authors except where specifically stated otherwise, and no images or sections of text can be extracted and used elsewhere without first obtaining permission. This material is based upon work supported under a collaboration between the National Science Foundation (NSF), Wellcome, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) via a grant from NSF (NSF DRL# 1647276) and a grant from Wellcome with ESRC (Wellcome grant no. 206202/Z/17/Z). Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of NSF, Wellcome, or ESRC

Lassa virus circulating in Liberia: a retrospective genomic characterisation

Background An alarming rise in reported Lassa fever cases continues in west Africa. Liberia has the largest reported per capita incidence of Lassa fever cases in the region, but genomic information on the circulating strains is scarce. The aim of this study was to substantially increase the available pool of data to help foster the generation of targeted diagnostics and therapeutics. Methods Clinical serum samples collected from 17 positive Lassa fever cases originating from Liberia (16 cases) and Guinea (one case) within the past decade were processed at the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research using a targeted-enrichment sequencing approach, producing 17 near-complete genomes. An additional 17 Lassa virus sequences (two from Guinea, seven from Liberia, four from Nigeria, and four from Sierra Leone) were generated from viral stocks at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA) from samples originating from the Mano River Union (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) region and Nigeria. Sequences were compared with existing Lassa virus genomes and published Lassa virus assays. Findings The 23 new Liberian Lassa virus genomes grouped within two clades (IV.A and IV.B) and were genetically divergent from those circulating elsewhere in west Africa. A time-calibrated phylogeographic analysis incorporating the new genomes suggests Liberia was the entry point of Lassa virus into the Mano River Union region and estimates the introduction to have occurred between 300–350 years ago. A high level of diversity exists between the Liberian Lassa virus genomes. Nucleotide percent difference between Liberian Lassa virus genomes ranged up to 27% in the L segment and 18% in the S segment. The commonly used Lassa Josiah-MGB assay was up to 25% divergent across the target sites when aligned to the Liberian Lassa virus genomes. Interpretation The large amount of novel genomic diversity of Lassa virus observed in the Liberian cases emphasises the need to match deployed diagnostic capabilities with locally circulating strains and underscores the importance of evaluating cross-lineage protection in the development of vaccines and therapeutics

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

The past 2 years, during which waves of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants swept the globe, have starkly highlighted health disparities across nations. Tegally et al. show how the coordinated efforts of talented African scientists have in a short time made great contributions to pandemic surveillance and data gathering. Their efforts and initiatives have provided early warning that has likely benefited wealthier countries more than their own. Genomic surveillance identified the emergence of the highly transmissible Beta and Omicron variants and now the appearance of Omicron sublineages in Africa. However, it is imperative that technology transfer for diagnostics and vaccines, as well the logistic wherewithal to produce and deploy them, match the data-gathering effort