What it Takes for Teachers to Lead Citizen Science in the Classroom
What it Takes for Teachers to Lead Citizen Science in the Classroom Bringing Citizen Science (CS) into the classroom is an incredible way to bring STEM education to life. However, it creates new demands on teachers, who act as the crucial intermediaries between the scientific community and the formal education system. In order to implement Citizen Science effectively, teachers need […]
EcoStories Presented at the PSVP Open Days
EcoStories Presented at the PSVP Open Days On 22 and 23 May, Prirodoslovna škola Vladimira Preloga (PSVP) opened its doors to prospective students, parents, and members of the wider community. Among the many educational initiatives showcased during the event, the EcoStories project introduced visitors to the exciting world of Citizen Science and its role in modern STEM education. The Open Days provided an excellent opportunity to present […]
What Happens When Teachers Have Time to Explore
What Happens When Teachers Have Time to Explore June 2026 At the close of the 2025-2026 school year, a group of secondary school teachers in Cyprus came together for a full day dedicated to one question: how can the EcoStories resources actually work in our classrooms? The training in Cyprus was structured as a blended learning experience. Teachers arrived having already […]
Building Better Lessons Together: EcoStories Partners Convene in Nicosia
Building Better Lessons Together: EcoStories Partners Convene in Nicosia On 11-12 March 2026, the EcoStories partnership gathered at the CIP Impact Hub in Nicosia for one of the project’s most hands-on milestones to date: the Transnational Training and Co-development Activity (A3.5). Representatives from all five partner organisations – RWTH Aachen University, C.I.P. Citizens in Power, Perifereiako Gymnasio Akakiou, the 5th High School […]
Bringing EcoStories to ECSA 2026
In the first week of March, our German partners at RWTH Aachen University presented our project with a poster at the ECSA 2026 conference hosted by the University of Oulu in Finland. Source: Amelie Loevenich The conference of the European Citizen Science Association is an opportunity for the citizenscience community to share experiences, knowledge, and ideas. Where better to present the EcoStories project than at the ECSA conference? This year, around 650 researchers and practitioners in the field of citizen science, policymakers, science funders, NGOs, and interested citizens travelled to northern Finland to connect. The location was even more special because Oulu is crowned the European Capital of Culture for 2026. The conference stands under the theme “Citizen Science bridging Centre and Periphery.” This topic served as a starting point for discussing the challenges and opportunities of implementing citizen science in contexts that are socially, institutionally, or scientifically distant from centres of power. Questions arose such as: how can citizen science serve as a tool for inclusion in areas or fields that are often overlooked or underrepresented, and how can citizen science engage marginalised communities in scientific research? The conference’s topic strongly aligns with the key goal of our project: to make science accessible to students, especially those from immigrant backgrounds, and to involve them in it. Therefore it was a great opportunity for us to contribute and showcase our results. Moreover, facilitating collaborations through citizen science is a major priority, which raises the question of how citizen science can help connect diverse knowledge systems and enable inclusive, equitable, and cooperative approaches to research. From this perspective, it is encouraging to see our project serving as a model. Our EcoStories team started as individuals from different backgrounds and countries. All of us work in the educational sector as teachers, researchers, or project managers. Despite these differences, we joined a task force to build a foundation for schools on which teachers or educators can implement citizen science. We face various problems in the communities where we live, but we see the potential of citizen science to bridge those differences and open research to everyone, especially to those who seem to fall out. We are confident that citizen science is a tool not only to motivate students for STEMbased lessons but also to give students with a migration background the opportunity to participate in science. Snowed in and under the Northern Lights, it was a week full of interesting presentations, informative round tables, and exciting meetings and workshops. Presenting our project with a poster at the poster session was a great way to further promote it. A QR code directed conference attendees directly to our ebook, and we hope it will continue to spread from there. Source: Amelie Loevenich
Citizen Science in Schools: Real Research, Real Students, Real Impact
Citizen science in schools is one of the simplest ways to make “doing science” feel real. Instead of treating labs as scripted exercises with known outcomes, students contribute to authentic research questions, e.g. counting species in their neighborhood, measuring temperature, classifying images from telescopes, or monitoring local water quality. That shift matters: when students see their observations becoming part […]
Testing the Future of Teaching: How EcoStories Sparked Dialogue in Cyprus
On 11 December 2025, C.I.P. Citizens in Power (CIP) was invited to Latsia Gymnasium in Nicosia on the occasion of International Teachers’ Day to present the first draft of the EcoStories Pedagogical E-book, “EcoStories: Citizen Science for Inclusive STEM Education and Climate Action,” and gather teachers’ feedback to support its refinement into the beta version (A2.6). The E-book is a […]
From Classroom to Citizen Science: How Five Conversations Are Re-shaping EcoStories
From Classroom to Citizen Science: How Five Conversations Are Re-shaping EcoStories During May 2025, the EcoStories partnership brought together forty-four teachers, migrant-education specialists and citizen-science practitioners in Cyprus, Germany, Greece and Croatia. Each focus-group session had its own rhythm, yet a shared melody soon became audible: hands-on, place-anchored science makes students feel that schoolwork matters […]