Introduction (2 min)

Citizens can be involved in various fields of science: in humanities, medical sciences and natural sciences. In all fields, Citizen Science can be seen as a method: involving lots of people increases data quantity and geographical coverage beyond the capacity of research teams. As such Citizen Science can be integrated in formal education programs and to find its place among other research methods to generate data in fundamental science.

Citizen Science has also the potential to position citizens as actors in science and to promote science-based policies if societal questions were addressed in research. In the field of environmental sciences, where the impact of human activities on nature and the backward effect of these impacts on human activities are studied, Citizen Science is particularly important as a novel form of governance of socio-ecological systems. In this case, citizens can be involved in various ways: Observation of biodiversity and the impact of human activities on ecological processes may come along with discussion groups on how to change human practices. There can be participatory workshops on new policies to be scientifically tested in an adaptive management approach or participatory art events asking new questions on human-nature relationships with the aim to develop new nature values that can be translated into novel ecosystem management methods. These are just a few examples of Citizen Science becoming a set of multidisciplinary protocols. Students should learn and understand the general approach of Citizen Science as a particular type of applied science addressing the ecological crisis, as a transdisciplinary approach specific to each local situation.

While Citizen Science could be considered as a method for fundamental science, we will also show how to train students to use citizen science with stakeholders in the governance of socio-ecosystems. Therefore, we will present in this section why and how Citizen Science can be part of the education program at all education levels.