Hands-on Activity Analyze & Design Projects:
Citizen Science with Zooniverse

Learning Objectives

After completing this activity, students should be able to:

• Describe what a specific citizen science project monitors/researches, how it does that, and how it enables researchers to make more informed decisions.
• Explain the practical societal benefits that a specific project might have.
• List the fields of science and engineering involved in a specific project and explain how each group contributes to the project.
• Explain the role of citizens in a specific citizen science project.
• Describe several projects in their own community that could benefit from the help of citizen scientists.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards - Science

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

State Standards

Materials List

Each group needs:

• computers with Internet access, preferably one per student
• blank paper
• colored pencils or markers, for website design
• Exploring a Zooniverse Project Worksheet, one per student
• Website Project Design Chart, one per student

To share with the entire class:

• Citizen Science with Zooniverse Presentation, Microsoft^® PowerPoint^® file
• computer with Internet access and projector to display the presentation slides, websites and video

Worksheets and Attachments

Pre-Req Knowledge

Basic ability to use a computer and access the Internet.

Introduction/Motivation

Have you ever heard of "citizen science" or "Zooniverse"? (Listen to student ideas.)

Today we are going to talk about how anyone can help the scientific community tackle some of its biggest projects, and then we're going to brainstorm some projects of our own.

Let's get started by talking about citizen science and then we will explore the "Zooniverse."

Procedure

Background

In this activity, students explore several citizen science projects to see how engineering can be used to make scientific research advances. Like engineers, they analyze the design of one of citizen science project to understand the need driving the project—the problem to be solved, the basics of how that problem is solved—and then consider how the project's design could potentially be improved. Following this, students work in small groups to design citizen science projects and supporting websites of their own.

As an example citizen science project, the Seafloor Explorer project at https://www.seafloorexplorer.org/#%21/science was designed by fisheries biologists, software engineers and specialists from other related fields who worked together to come up with solutions to monitor the ecological balance of the sea life in the northeast continental shelf. The fisheries biologists described to the software engineers what they wanted and the software engineers created computer software solutions. In this case, the biologists want to monitor the ecological balance on the northeast continental to ensure that the population of the sea creatures stays in balance, which is important so that no species become endangered. It also helps the biologists study and learn more about sea creatures in general, which could provide other societal benefits. Responding to this, the software engineers designed and implemented a solution consisting of a website where citizens classify the data, a database where the data is stored and queried, and computer artificial intelligence that learns the from citizens' classifications in order to eventually classify the images itself. Another benefit is that the citizen science from this project also helps the software engineers generally improve their design of artificial intelligence capabilities.

Before the Activity

• Conduct a number of the Zooniverse projects to learn how they work and gain some insight on a few specific examples, which will help you knowledgeably share facts and description about a few examples when introducing the class to Zooniverse, as well as be a resource for any technical problems students might encounter.
• Create a Zooniverse account. Some Zooniverse projects require an account while others do not. Preferably, direct students to projects that do not require accounts or let them create their own accounts. Or, log them in with your account. If you log them in with your account, the tutorial for any projects that you have completed will need to be restarted.
• Make copies of the Exploring a Zooniverse Project Worksheet and Website Project Design Chart, one each per student.
• Prepare to show students the Citizen Science with Zooniverse Presentation, which includes accessing websites and an online video.

With the Students

1. (Begin at slide 1 of the presentation.) Present the Introduction/Motivation content to the class; see if students have any prior knowledge about citizen science and Zooniverse.
2. (slide 2) Citizen science is scientific research that ordinary citizens can help with. Usually it involves people working with or being led by a team of scientists, engineers and/or other researchers with varied backgrounds and expertise. Many different types of citizen science are going on around the world at this very moment; maybe you have heard of some of them.
3. (slide 3) One example of ongoing citizen science is medical research; that's when researchers and doctors test out new medical treatments on sick people who volunteer to be test subjects. For example, trying a new way to fix a broken leg or participating in clinical trials for new cancer treatment.
4. (slide 4) Another example of ongoing citizen science is medication testing; that's when people are paid to test medications for medical conditions such as high cholesterol or heartburn. Have you seen drug advertisements on TV or in magazines and noticed the long list of warnings and side-effects? Those side-effects are discovered by this testing.
5. (slide 5) Psychologists study peoples' minds. During their research, they see how people behave in certain situations and how different conditions and stimuli influence their brains. For example, the MRI machine shown on this slide is used to conduct research because it shows people's brain activity in response to how they are thinking and feeling in response to certain stimuli.
6. (slide 6) Another example is the use of people's personal computers to help with complex scientific calculations, such as SETI @ home, which can be downloaded on almost any computer to process data when your computer is not being used. You do not need to do anything except download and set up the program on your computer. SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. How does it work? The Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, shown on the slide, which is the largest dish antenna in the world, captures radio waves from outer space on the feed antenna suspended above it on cables and examines them for signs of intelligent life. How many of you have a radio in your family's car? This is the same idea, except SETI listens to radio signals from distant space instead of from nearby radio stations. Right now, all the radio signals that have been found seem to be unintelligent noise, like the static noise on the radio when no station is dialed in. However, more radio signals exist than can possibly be examined by scientists, which is why citizen scientists can volunteer their computers to help examine the radio data.
7. (slide 7) Another very common type of citizen science is the classification of data that needs humans to look at it because it cannot be deciphered by machines. That's where Zooniverse comes in. Let's look at the first Zooniverse project, Galaxy Zoo, and do one classification together. As a class, conduct the interactive Galaxy Zoo activity by following these steps:

• Click the Galaxy Zoo link on the slide to go to the Zooniverse website, at https://www.zooniverse.org/project/hubble.
• Once there, read the introduction: We need your help to classify the Hubble Space Telescope's hundreds of thousands of galaxy images according to their shapes—a task at which your brain is better than even the most advanced computer.
• Then click the "Take part" button (goes to http://www.galaxyzoo.org/) and then click the "Begin Classifying" button.
• When an image of a galaxy appears, ask students for advice on how to classify it.
• Click on the "Examples" button to show students how to use the "Help" feature to learn more about how to classify the different types of galaxies.
• Explain that multiple people classify each of galaxy, so if a mistake is made in classification it is not a problem and will eventually get corrected or figured out by consensus.
• Get agreement or majority vote from students on how to classify the galaxy.
• Get input from students at each step in order to answer all the questions about classifying the galaxy until its classification is complete.
• Once a galaxy has been successfully classified, congratulate students on having made a small, but meaningful contribution to science.

8. (slides 8-9) Now that students have first-hand experience with how citizen science works, give them some background on Zooniverse, its history and project types. Show them a 1:28-minute video that recaps how Galaxy Zoo harnessed the brain power of 250,000 volunteers to classify the shapes of hundreds of thousands of galaxies captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T9wizyDV8c. Zooniverse's science and laboratory projects include a range of topic categories: space, climate, humanities, nature and biology. Look at the list of ~20 Zooniverse projects at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects#all.
9. (slide 10) Explain the activity steps listed on the slide: get a worksheet, go to the Zooniverse website, pick a project and explore it, answer the worksheet questions, use reasoned inference as necessary.
10. (slide 11) Give students some research tips by going to the Zooniverse website at https://www.zooniverse.org/ and scrolling through the main page, showing the different categories of projects, and then clicking on the Galaxy Zoo project. On the Galaxy Zoo project website, point out the links to the various website sections (story, science, discuss) and their sub-pages, and explain that from pages like this on their projects' websites, they will find information to help them answer the worksheet questions.
11. (slide 12) Address any student questions before getting started. As needed, help students navigate to the Zooniverse website and its list of projects.
12. (slide 13) Hand out the worksheets and direct students to get started, working individually or in pairs (or larger groups, depending on computer availability). Leave slide 10 on the projector screen so that students can refer to it as a reminder of what they should be doing.
13. (slide 14) After 25 minutes, have students share their observations, thoughts, experiences and findings, as well as any other information they recorded on their worksheets.
14. Ask students to reflect upon the citizen science project they explored and share with the class a way to improve the project. This is something engineers think about doing a lot—how to make something better. As an example, one possible design improvement for the Seafloor Explorer project might be to add zoom-in functionality for when people are classifying the images because some of the sea life is small and hard to see. This improvement would make the project easier to use, thus attracting more people to participate.
15. Once students have finished exploring the Zooniverse site, point out that the projects on the website are all large-scale and of national or international interest. Invite a discussion of different types of projects like Zooniverse that could be implemented more locally, in their own community. Ask: What are some projects that could be done in your community that citizens could help with?
16. Start brainstorming with students, writing their suggestions on the classroom board. It may be hard at first, after seeing such large-scale projects, but try to get them thinking about hands-on assistance or awareness. What about a website devoted to environmental engineering issues (ecosystem, soil, air or water pollution)? Cleaning up parks? Roads? Pothole reporting? A website for reporting environmental hazards? Downed trees or clogged street drains after storms?Continue brainstorming ways that citizens might contribute to community-wide problems via websites or social media.
17. Once a half-dozen or so ideas have been suggested, divide the class into groups of two to four students each. Direct groups to each design a website that addresses its local project topic (either chosen or assigned). Review the steps of the engineering design process with students and emphasize that they focus on brainstorming ideas and the initial design steps of the process (more than the implementing and testing of their designs). Hand out the design chart and give groups 20 minutes to come up with overall website designs.
18. Next, have students use colored pencils or markers and blank paper to sketch their website designs. Make sure the graphical work generally follows their design charts and that a main page and sub-pages are designed in such a way that the information is clear, easy to use and has some way for community members to contribute. Provide ~25 minutes for this portion of the activity.
19. Conclude by having teams present their projects and website designs to the class, as described in the Assessment section.

Vocabulary/Definitions

brainstorming: A group problem-solving process in which each person in the group contributes his or her ideas in an open forum, building on the ideas of others, with the purpose to generate a large number of potential solutions to a design challenge. During this step, wild ideas are encouraged and are recorded, but not evaluated.

citizen: In the context of "citizen science," a person who is not a professional scientist or researcher, at least not in the area of research for which s/he is helping.

citizen science: Scientific research conducted by non-scientists. Sometimes called "public participation in scientific research or "crowd science."

engineer: A person who applies his/her understanding of science and math to creating things for the benefit of humanity and our world.

technology: The application of scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

Zooniverse: A website that is "home to the internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects."

Zooniverse project: A citizen science project that can be done online entirely through a web browser at the Zooniverse website.

Assessment

Pre-Activity Assessment

What Do You Know? As part of the Introduction/Motivation section, ask students questions to find out what they know about citizen science and the Zooniverse.

Activity Embedded Assessment

Exploring: After handing out the Exploring a Zooniverse Project Worksheet and allowing time for students to get started, move around the classroom, answering any questions and observing what students are doing on the project websites. Collect the worksheets for review and grading. Refer to the Exploring a Zooniverse Project Worksheet Example Answers; these example answers may be shared with the students in advance of their own investigations if you think it would help them understand the activity assignment.

Website Design: While student groups are brainstorming, planning and designing their websites, walk around to make sure students are on task, answer questions and give feedback to ensure quick progress.

Post-Activity Assessment

Share the Exciting Things You've Learned about Your Project: Have student groups present their websites to the class. Make sure they explain both the technical and graphical aspects of their websites. An example design might be a project in which citizens analyze pictures of birds taken by skyward or tree-facing cameras to better understand behavior and migration patterns of birds that live in a community park. During the presentation, expect students to clearly explain how the website would function, the responsibilities and tasks for the citizens involved, and how the information generated by citizens could be used by scientist and/or engineers to help solve a community problem or need.

Bonus Question: What steps of the engineering design process did you complete? (Example answer: Understanding the need > brainstorming to come up with many different ideas > selecting one idea > creating a plan.)

Troubleshooting Tips

If a Zooniverse project does not work properly, switch to a different web browser.

Additional Multimedia Support

Show students an example local community participation website called ParkScan San Francisco (http://www.parkscan.org/), which provides a way for citizens to report local park conditions (overflowing trash cans, dry grassy areas, broken sprinklers, fallen tree limbs, broken playground equipment, graffiti-tagged walls) to keep them clean, safe and fun. The website requires citizen observers to give their email addresses and it provides a tutorial, map and form to submit a description with photos.

Information about the steps of the engineering design process: https://www.teachengineering.org/engrdesignprocess.php.

References

Copyright

Contributors

Supporting Program

Acknowledgements

This activity was developed under National Science Foundation GK-12 grant no. DGE 0948019. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.