833016 Project Citizen Science

Type
Project course
Semester hours
6
Lecturer (assistant)
Dörler, Daniel , Heigl, Florian
Organisation
Offered in
Wintersemester 2024/25
Languages of instruction
Deutsch
Content

Citizen Science, i.e. the active involvement of the citizens in scientific projects, enables the answering of complex questions in the field of sustainable development (e.g. for the achievement of the UN - Sustainable Development Goals). Many projects in ecology deal with the topic of biodiversity. In this course, students have the unique opportunity to work in one of the best known citizen science projects in Austria and to work on their own research questions. On the one hand, the students can thus make a contribution to the protection of biodiversity, and on the other hand, they can contribute to current research themselves.

The Roadkill project (www.roadkill.at), which has been carried out very successfully by the course leaders for several years, serves as a framework and has already won an Honorary Mention in the European Union Citizen Science Prize 2023, as well as the BOKU Sustainability Award 2017, and was also nominated for the Federal Animal Welfare Award 2018. In the introductory units, students get an insight into the ongoing project and identify possible research questions they would like to answer with the data collected in the project. Important skills (e.g. literature search and management) are also covered in order to answer the self-selected research questions in a scientific paper in several guided steps in the form of group work.

The course "Project Citizen Science" was awarded the recognition prize of the state prize for university teaching "Ars Docendi" in 2023.
Previous knowledge expected

completed bachelor's degree, basics of statistics, basics of scientific working
Objective (expected results of study and acquired competences)

1. learning how to conduct scientific work (hypothesis generation, method definition, data analysis, writing a publication) in an award-winning Citizen Science project.
2. improved understanding and insight into working with citizen science
You can find more details like the schedule or information about exams on the course-page in BOKUonline.