Online citizen science meets environmental care
Teacher Dianne Christenson created this inquiry unit with students at Koraunui School and has generously shared it on the Science Learning Hub website.
Click on the link above to visit the website, where you can download the unit plan and learn more about this inspiring project, including a short video and links to related content and resources.
About the Unit
In this unit, students did a lot of hands-on learning about litter by doing regular lunchbox audits and LittaTrap audits, sorting beach samples and using the OCS project The Plastic Tide. The core focus of the unit was developing the science capabilities ‘Gather and interpret data’ and ‘Engage with science’.
Through the kaitiakitanga unit, students were able to connect their regular stream monitoring work with some big questions about the amount of litter found locally and then globally and to reflect on what changes are needed to reduce litter.
Dianne was a teacher researcher in the education research project Citizen Scientists in the Classroom funded through the Ministry of Education’s Teaching & Learning Research Initiative. Read about some of the research outcomes in Using the Web for Science in the Classroom: Online Citizen Science Participation in Teaching and Learning.
Main Image Credit: Dianne Christenson, Koraunui School
