How do marine and coastal citizen science experiences foster environmental engagement?
Citizen Science
Citizen science is a ‘participatory model of science’, where citizens can get involved in various aspects of scientific research (usually as a data contributor or monitor). Apart from the research purposes, citizen science is often utilized to foster science literacy and engagement among citizens.
Based on a survey study of individuals who participated in reef citizen science events, Dean et al. (2018) investigate the effect of different elements in promoting greater environmental engagement, and discover that ‘the way citizen science experiences make people feel, may be more important for fostering future environmental engagement than factual-based learning’ (p.409).