LEARNING ORGANIC CHEMISTRY REMOTELY: METHODS TO REDUCE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN EXPERTS AND STUDENTS

Australia has a high distance chemistry education enrolment due to its disparate population (Dalgarno, Bishop, & Bedgood, 2012). While distance education provides extensive opportunities for students to develop theoretical knowledge, there are challenges in teaching organic chemistry remotely due to its emphasis on laboratory-based skills and assessments (Neeland 2007; Rhodes 2010). Here we report on a two-stage research project to explore how distance chemistry education is conducted and perceived: 1) a review of learning theory and methods used for contemporary distance chemistry education; 2) a survey of high school science teachers across school archetypes regarding available resources, and teacher perspectives of successful approaches in science education. Informed by the results of our research, we will develop instructional resources to improve distance teaching of practical chemistry skills. Our initial findings suggest that distance teaching methods employed, are highly dependent on the classroom or home environment and resources available. In this talk, we will share results from both stages of our research project. We will then map out our plans for resource development to enhance distance learning in practical chemistry for school students, undergraduates and citizens. This research is being completed in partnership with the Breaking Good citizen science project (Motion, 2020). REFERENCES Dalgarno, B., Bishop, A. G., and Bedgood, D. R. (2012). The Potential of Virtual Laboratories for Distance Education Science Teaching: Reflections from the Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Chemistry Laboratory. UniServe Science Improving Learning Outcomes Symposium Proceedings (pp. 90-95). Uniserve Science, University of Sydney. Motion, A. “Breaking Good.” Breaking Good. Retrieved June 19, 2020, from (https://www.breakinggoodproject.com). Neeland, E. (2007). A One-Hour Practical Lab Exam for Organic Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education 84(9), 1453. Rhodes, M. (2010). A Laboratory Practical Exam for High School Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education 87(6), 613–15

From goals to engagement—evaluating citizen science project descriptions as science communication texts

Introduction: Attracting and recruiting volunteers is a key aspect of managing a citizen science initiative. Science communication plays a central role in this process. In this context, project descriptions are of particular importance, as they are very often, the first point of contact between a project and prospective participants. As such, they need to be reader-friendly, accessible, spark interest, contain practical information, and motivate readers to join the project.Methods: This study examines citizen science project descriptions as science communication texts. We conducted a thorough review and analysis of a random sample of 120 English-language project descriptions to investigate the quality and comprehensiveness of citizen science project descriptions and the extent to which they contain information relevant to prospect participants.Results: Our findings reveal information deficiencies and challenges relating to clarity and accessibility. While goals and expected outcomes were frequently addressed, practical matters and aspects related to volunteer and community management were much less well-represented.Discussion: This study contributes to a deeper understanding of citizen science communication methods and provides valuable insights and recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness and impact of citizen science

LEARNING ABOUT THE COMPLEXITY OF SCIENCE THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE

Understanding the complexity and multifaceted nature of science is a key skill for engaging fruitfully in today’s scientifically and technologically enhanced society. Yet, these notions are often not taught in school or university contexts and thus are difficult for students and publics to conceive. One way to increase the understanding about the nature of science is by active participation in scientific research, through citizen science projects. This paper presents a novel approach to citizen science, applied in EENTIAL MEDICINE$ – a Breaking Good citizen science project – for exploring the world's most important medicines (Motion et al., 2020). Through hands-on engagement with the project, participants investigate the life cycles and accessibility of important medicines to people around the world, and learn about the social, political and financial variables which affect access to some medicines. Such learning opportunities provide a holistic understanding of the complexity of science, and will be discussed in this talk alongside the implications and implementation of EENTIAL MEDICINE$ in formal education. REFERENCE Motion, A. et al. “Breaking Good.” Breaking Good. Retrieved June 19, 2020 (https://www.breakinggoodproject.com)

Citizen Science, Education, and Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

Citizen science is a growing field of research and practice, generating new knowledge and understanding through the collaboration of citizens in scientific research. As the field expands, it is becoming increasingly important to consider its potential to foster education and learning opportunities. Although progress has been made to support learning in citizen science projects, as well as to facilitate citizen science in formal and informal learning environments, challenges still arise. This paper identifies a number of dilemmas facing the field—from competing scientific goals and learning outcomes, differing underlying ontologies and epistemologies, diverging communication strategies, to clashing values around advocacy and activism. Although such challenges can become barriers to the successful integration of citizen science into mainstream education systems, they also serve as signposts for possible synergies and opportunities. One of the key emerging recommendations is to align educational learning outcomes with citizen science project goals at the planning stage of the project using co-creation approaches to ensure issues of accessibility and inclusivity are paramount throughout the design and implementation of every project. Only then can citizen science realise its true potential to empower citizens to take ownership of their own science education and learning

Meet the Medicines—A Crowdsourced Approach to Collecting and Communicating Information about Essential Medicines Online

The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains a list of medicines and medical devices, essential medicines, that should be available to everyone, to form a functioning healthcare system. Yet, many of these medicines remain out of reach for people around the world. One significant barrier to improving the accessibility of essential medicines is a paucity of information about both the extent and causes of this problem. EENTIAL MEDICINE$ (E) is a citizen science project designed to investigate this deficit of information by recruiting members of the public to find, validate, compile and share information on essential medicines through an open, online database. Herein, we report an approach to crowdsourcing both the collection of information on the accessibility of essential medicines and the subsequent communication of these findings to diverse audiences. The Meet the Medicines initiative encourages members of the public to share information from the E$$ database, in a short video format appropriate for social media. This communication details the design and implementation of our crowdsourced approach and strategies for recruiting and supporting participants. We discuss data on participant engagement, consider the benefits and challenges of this approach and suggest ways to promote crowdsourcing practices for social and scientific good

Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

Increased interest in public engagement with science worldwide has resulted in the growth of funding opportunities for scientists in the rapidly expanding field of citizen science. This paper describes a case study based on interviews and observations, including a six-month field diary, of ten scientists who engaged in a citizen science project to receive funding for their scientific research. It examines how these scientists perceived their commitment to the public, and it explores relationships between the ways that citizen science is defined and presented in the literature and the ideas that scientists in this project have about citizen science. The findings indicate that these scientists were motivated mostly by their interest in promoting scientific research and obtaining prestigious funding. Many of the scientists also found it difficult to accept the idea that the public can make actual contributions to science. Although the scientists acknowledged the advantages and benefits of citizen participation for the public, they had no desire to actively engage with the public and would rather conduct a traditional study without the public’s involvement. Exposing scientists to public engagement and citizen science concepts, especially at early stages of their scientific carrier, could help overcome barriers and encourage scientists to further engage the public in such initiatives

A wide lens on learning in a networked society: What can we learn by synthesizing multiple research perspectives?

Learning in a networked society is presented in this symposium with the basic assumption that “schooling” and “society” cannot be considered as separate entities and should bring together the theoretical and practical tools of scientists in both the social and educational sciences. Despite the powerful potential for cross-fostering of ideas between these fields, one key question arising inquires whether educational scientists—who focus on the interventionist, design-based study of learning—and social scientists, who concentrate on analytic study of spontaneous social interaction and knowledge construction, can engage in a productive collaboration. This symposium seeks to address this question by adopting an interdisciplinary lens, through which these perspectives have been integrated, or at least juxtaposed, to develop new insights regarding what it means to learn in an information-based networked society. Six interdisciplinary research projects that represent lessons learned from synergistic projects among researchers from these fields are presented in this symposium

Standardised data on initiatives—STARDIT:Beta version

Background and objective There is currently no standardised way to share information across disciplines about initiatives, including fields such as health, environment, basic science, manufacturing, media and international development. All problems, including complex global problems such as air pollution and pandemics require reliable data sharing between disciplines in order to respond effectively. Current reporting methods also lack information about the ways in which different people and organisations are involved in initiatives, making it difficult to collate and appraise data about the most effective ways to involve different people. The objective of STARDIT (Standardised Data on Initiatives) is to address current limitations and inconsistencies in sharing data about initiatives. The STARDIT system features standardised data reporting about initiatives, including who has been involved, what tasks they did, and any impacts observed. STARDIT was created to help everyone in the world find and understand information about collective human actions, which are referred to as ‘initiatives’. STARDIT enables multiple categories of data to be reported in a standardised way across disciplines, facilitating appraisal of initiatives and aiding synthesis of evidence for the most effective ways for people to be involved in initiatives. This article outlines progress to date on STARDIT; current usage; information about submitting reports; planned next steps and how anyone can become involved. Method STARDIT development is guided by participatory action research paradigms, and has been co-created with people from multiple disciplines and countries. Co-authors include cancer patients, people affected by rare diseases, health researchers, environmental researchers, economists, librarians and academic publishers. The co-authors also worked with Indigenous peoples from multiple countries and in partnership with an organisation working with Indigenous Australians. Results and discussion Over 100 people from multiple disciplines and countries have been involved in co-designing STARDIT since 2019. STARDIT is the first open access web-based data-sharing system which standardises the way that information about initiatives is reported across diverse fields and disciplines, including information about which tasks were done by which stakeholders. STARDIT is designed to work with existing data standards. STARDIT data will be released into the public domain (CC0) and integrated into Wikidata; it works across multiple languages and is both human and machine readable. Reports can be updated throughout the lifetime of an initiative, from planning to evaluation, allowing anyone to be involved in reporting impacts and outcomes. STARDIT is the first system that enables sharing of standardised data about initiatives across disciplines. A working Beta version was publicly released in February 2021 (ScienceforAll.World/STARDIT). Subsequently, STARDIT reports have been created for peer-reviewed research in multiple journals and multiple research projects, demonstrating the usability. In addition, organisations including Cochrane and Australian Genomics have created prospective reports outlining planned initiatives. Conclusions STARDIT can help create high-quality standardised information on initiatives trying to solve complex multidisciplinary global problems