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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Mark WhittinghamORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Being connected to nature can have many benefits for children, including improved well-being, and more positive attitudes towards the environment. Ecological recording, as part of a citizen science project, may offer new opportunities for children to learn about, and connect with, nature. In this study, we investigate outcomes of an ecological citizen science intervention carried out in 34 primary schools across North-East England. Participating schools: deployed camera traps to monitor wildlife; took part in a workshop; and contributed to the citizen science project, MammalWeb. After our intervention, pupils could draw / name more UK mammals, particularly species that were captured on the school’s camera traps. Connection to nature scores did not significantly increase across all pupils however, there was an increase in scores for those pupils who had a low initial score. Schools that took part in teacher workshops engaged more with MammalWeb, following the intervention period however, teacher feedback revealed that long-term engagement was challenging due to time constraints and other factors. Our study demonstrates the positive impacts that participating in a citizen science project can have on school pupils, whilst also highlighting some of the challenges of sustaining engagement and therefore benefits for pupils in the long-term.
Author(s): Mason SS, Hill RA, Whittingham MJ, Coghill L, Stephens PA
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement
Year: 2025
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 16/06/2025
Acceptance date: 28/05/2025
Date deposited: 30/06/2025
ISSN (print): 2154-8455
ISSN (electronic): 2154-8463
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/21548455.2025.2515617
DOI: 10.1080/21548455.2025.2515617
Data Access Statement: Our supporting research dataset is published in the figshare open data repository. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29119043.
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