Nurture in nature for nurture of nature: SEI at the Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences 2025 Smriti Safaya will discuss how to achieve enduring impact from environmental citizen science projects in schools, based on her research in Hong Kong and the UK.

Doing environmental #CitizenScience with schools? How can you ensure it has enduring impact on students and teachers?

Smriti Safaya shares insights from five years work in Hong Kong and UK schools in this presentation given at #CAPS25.

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#NatureEducation #InclusiveCitSci

📄 ECSA is proud to share that symposium report “𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑻𝒐𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘'𝒔 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒏 𝑺𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉 𝑰𝒏𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆: 𝑨 𝑪𝒐-𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆” from the Conference for Advancing Participatory Sciences #CAPS2025 on May 28, 2025 in Portland is now on Zenodo:
🔗 doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
#CAPS25 #CitizenScience

Reflections on CAPS25

Reflections on the AI double standard

Reflections on community & memory at the Ethical Considerations Panel

Reflections on Reciprocity

Thanks to AAPS for a wonderful #CAPS25 conference last week! Here are some reflections from Research & Policy Manager Emelia Williams ✨

Getting my copy of #theAICon at the end of #caps25. Talked about a version of it in the conference. How come scientists suspect data quality from #citizenScience but happily run into using data and results from #AI? It's the CS-AI paradox...

CAPS25 – respectful and reciprocal callaboration with indigenous communities Jeremy FiveCrows (Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission)  Gabe Sheoships Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, director Lili Yazzie (Diné) Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, Green Leaders Workforce Coordinator.  Darius Yaw (PSU) Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledge  Lu Whitebear (Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies, Oregon State University) and Tim Hecox (World Forestry Center) Examples of partnerships - the issue of supporting fire that is done by bringing cultural fire and considering how to do a controlled burn, but it is also done in understanding the landscape and learning about the fire.

Notes from #CAPS25 on collaboration with indigenous communities #CitizenScience #ParticipatoryScience

CAPS25 – respectful and reciprocal callaboration with indigenous communities 1. Jeremy FiveCrows (Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission) 2. Gabe Sheoships Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, director 3. Lili Yazzie (Diné) Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, Green Leaders Workforce Coordinator. 4. Darius Yaw (PSU) Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledge 5. Lu Whitebear (Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies, Oregon State University) and Tim Hecox (World Forestry Center) Examples of partnerships – the issue of supporting fire that is done by bringing cultural fire and considering how to do a controlled burn, but it is also done in understanding the landscape and learning about the fire. In contrast, cultural burn was an intergenerational element and some of the safety aspects are blocking learning. It’s a cultural event of importance. Sometimes, when inviting a single person doesn’t work for people who are working as a community, so even a personal invitation becomes something that several people show up. Concepts of othering the idea of tribes (e.g. are you still living in a tipi). It’s a certain dehumanisation (and that also reflected in the concept of what food is relevant to them etc.) . Ignoring indigenous knowledge looks odd of ignoring thousands of years of knowledge, and reflect dehumanisation or racism. Collaboration around a specific project, say stream restoration can be healing and bring together people and realising that they can learn from indigenous people. Issues of identity and recognition of the identity by other people come up a lot. Also, the reluctance of people who are interested in understanding indigenous knowledge is that they feel they can’t join and learn. Misconception about research and research methodologies – for example, reading decolonising methodology. The issue with indigenous literature allows to unlock the mind and approach. Misconceptions that anthropologists have the right to speak about other people when they are around. Activities such as basket weaving is not the act itself but the use and demonstration of ancestral knowledge. Pan-indigeneity – things that there are commonalities across all indigenous groups, but this is a wrong idea and a lack of acceptance of the variabilities. Connection to the land and also sharing and moving with indigenous knowledge but living in another place came up. Misconceptions are also created through the educational system, lacking in recognising tribal culture and its contribution. A view that they were in the past and are not around anymore. A need to be able to learn and listen to different forms of understanding and see the world. Accepting sovereignty and respect – remembers that tribes are tapped a lot and they might have different priorities. Coming from spaces of intergenerational learning. Consider inclusion from the beginning and building the bridges. In the US and Canada, there are aspects of sovereignty and trusts that need to be taken into account. Need to consider intertribal spaces. Approaching the knowledge of people who have been living in the place with humility. Issues of learning about atrocities, trauma and it is needed for healing and rebuilding. Embracing indigenous communities within a settler colonialist society – learn about those aspects and learn about the history and background before you approach. Colonialism continues to happen to communities and needs to be considered. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Notes from #CAPS25 on collaboration with indigenous communities #CitizenScience #ParticipatoryScience

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CAPS25 conference – iNatuarlist keynote This week it's the Association for Advancing Participatory Science conference (27-30 May 2025). The opening keynote was given by iNaturalist Scott Loarie, the executive director of iNaturalist. Scott covered 5 lessons from iNat. It started as an MSc project, and has been going in for 17 years. It’s growing over time, about 8m observation. Seasonality of the northern hemisphere.

Notes for the keynote of #CAPS25 conference (AAPS) #CitizenScience #ParticipatoryScience #CommunityScience

CAPS25 conference – iNatuarlist keynote This week it’s the Association for Advancing Participatory Science conference (27-30 May 2025). The opening keynote was given by iNaturalist Scott Loarie, the executive director of iNaturalist. Scott covered **5 lessons from iNat**. It started as an MSc project, and has been going in for 17 years. It’s growing over time, about 8m observation. Seasonality of the northern hemisphere. Starting slow, and COVID provided a boost. It takes time to get off the ground. iNat is about focus on a critical challenge – the specific niche is try to give a spotlite on the species, there are not enough scientists to name species, describe, document and study them. We are going to lose one in three species. Can people document and protect species. Second point – make it fun and make it enjoyable. Get people to go outside and post, don’t make it too complicated and not fun to do. A student in Ecuador found a new type of butterfly. In Papua New Guinea, a bird that hasn’t been seen for a long time. Lesson three – make it social: CS involve people – it’s a feature, not a bug. Bioblitz in Sri lanca. City nature challenge is the biggest recording of biology on earth. CNC over million observation. 1 in 40 species in the world were recorded. A big celebration of life on earth. Build a new kind of scientific instrument and make it open – it’s a new tool that allows things to be seen in a way that wasn’t possible before. By making the tool open, it’s now got 6000 publications that are based on iNat. Make it easy. We can see changes in species distribution because of the temporal aspect. There is also an increase in invasive species that get into new areas and can be found in recording. There are also indications of other species that contract in terms of coverage. Papers that are utilising iNaturalist are also discovering information within a photo, noticing aspects about morphology, phenology, evidence for food consumption, and the photo can provide insights into changes. The many 100m of photos allow for the AI tool to work on them. Computer vision is providing a new journey. DNA is also linked to photo and sequencing the DNA that is also posted on iNat, and discovering new mushrooms. Last lesson – don’t just crowdsource science, crowdsource solutions. The process is not to assume that the linear pipeline from scientists to policy makers, but actually, you go into dealing with conservation – what is the theory of change to get people to deal with a problem. There are cases of restoring habitat based on observation – skip the scientific publication and go for the solution. Also, noticing newts through a community-based process to create a crossing for newts. Comparing lessons from SEEK to iNat and finding a route between the two. Generative AI is possible because of sharing information together and AI will need curious people sharing stuff on the internet. Humans in the loop of AI and as a way to use it for open scientific commenting and can help navigate the crazy AI. There is a concern about falsifying data and putting images that have been created through AI. Partnership of iNat, one of the key decisions of iNat is the ability to create projects – it’s a reason for scaling, and that feature allows lowering the barrier to entry to use iNat for their aim and to use it as a tool. CNC can bring iNat down and require planning – trying to keep servers that run on $480K a year and need to grow but keep it lean. They are building a long-term scientific infrastructure, but that is supposed to continue. GBiF exist as a place to share data is incredible, and it doesn’t have an equivalent in other areas. Assessing the impact of iNat requires more studying and analysing,g and trying to build a better system to tell the story. Ambition – 100m people participating in monitoring nature, and can we build a tool that can help move from recording to stewardship. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Notes for the keynote of #CAPS25 conference (AAPS) #CitizenScience #ParticipatoryScience #CommunityScience

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Are you attending the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences' #CAPS25 Conference in Portland today?

OEDP's Research & Policy Manager Emelia Williams will be there discussing our Community Data Playbook. Join them at the Ethical Considerations talk session today at 3:45 pm PT 💫