Citizen science as an educational tool for improving scientific literacy of undergraduate students

Abstract

The aim of my paper is to propose a new approach to support scientific literacy of undergraduate students that uses methods of active participation in scientific research. I introduce the concept of citizen science as scientific literacy. Based on the accessible literature review, I present the overall approach to the educational potential of citizen science, as well as the results of selected surveys conducted to measure the impact of citizen science projects to the participants’ scientific literacy level. I make the claim that even short-term projects may make great impact, although the subject definitely needs more research. In this paper, I also outline the possibility of using citizen science projects in the undergraduate curriculum.