BENEFITS
Having in mind that the collaboration between QUT ARG and CSHS was established not long before the COVID-19 situation arose, communication between parties was incredibly smooth including connecting by videoconferencing to develop engagement plans, learning materials and an online platform. This project therefore provided an opportunity to establish and strengthen new relationships between individuals working within these organizations that may underpin further activities and projects.
Throughout the development of this project one of the anticipated benefits was the opportunity the Agricultural Technology students were given to enhance their knowledge about plant morphology and the identification of plants (grasses) in a real-world context. However, unexpectedly, through the process of developing learning modules for the students, individuals from different disciplines within the QUT ARG (mathematics, environmental chemistry) consolidated their own knowledge about plant morphology and identification.
The QUT ARG team has been actively learning about topics relevant to new aspects of the citizen science project, which were applied and tested. The QUT ARG team gained valuable knowledge and insight on the requirements and processes for school-university partnerships. The project had the added benefit of providing early career researchers a lived experience of communication and transfer of knowledge to junior high school level.
The set of resources developed and refined in this collaborative project will be used as a valuable teaching and learning material for future projects. These learning resources will allow for expansion of this project to extend citizen science involving other schools and community groups. Working with the school community has increased awareness of citizen science not only with students but also with their friends and families. This can be an important forum for a broader public engagement that will allow growth of awareness around the importance of grass diversity, phenology and grass pollen, as an allergy trigger and management of pollen allergies.
With this citizen science project students were given an opportunity for a hands-on experience in grassland ecology field work and online data entry to a digital platform while learning at home. The designed online learning and practical activities have exposed students to real-world science and likely facilitated a development of important scientific skills in observation, critical thinking and analysis. Students had to carefully observe features of grass, its flowers and leaves, decide on type of flower, flower head, suggest the likely grass species, and analyze generated data (Appendix). Learning approaches such as this are proven to be effective in increasing student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers (Hiller et al. 2015). Citizen science projects like this one, can be considered as an important initial step towards professional development of young individuals.
A further collective benefit was that this project received coverage from media outlets including a national television nightly news channel as well as university and school media platforms (QUT ARG 2020). This coverage provided positive attention to all partners involved, and increased awareness of science to the community including the project motivation and scope, as well as some of the health impacts of grass pollen.
Although time to develop and implement the project was limited, this facilitated the rapid evolution of the project because all individuals involved had a heightened focused on making things happen. This benefited all parties; the school teaching staff, university researchers and school students, and above all, inspired the team to provide a unique and much needed learning experience for students in difficult times.