Citizen Science and co-design initiatives with students to raise awareness about SMARTLAGOON and the Mar Menor

Citizen Science is a powerful tool for engaging individuals with diverse backgrounds, skills, and ages. Numerous studies have demonstrated its successful application in educational contexts, raising awareness about specific topics and involving students in serious discussions.

In this context, we utilized Citizen Science as an educational tool for teenagers. Specifically, we conducted two activities in May 2023, engaging two classes (33 + 19 students) from a high school near Murcia (CEIP San Vicente de Paul, in El Palmar). The students were 15-16 years old, and each session lasted two hours, covering:

• An introduction to SMARTLAGOON and the issues surrounding Mar Menor.
• An overview of the workshop’s main topics: citizen science, co-design, and gamification.
• A co-design session using paper-based smartphones to create a low-fidelity gamified app aimed at collecting data from Mar Menor.

Throughout the sessions, students designed captivating citizen science gamified apps using mock-ups as a low-fidelity prototyping method. Finally, their responses to a final questionnaire demonstrated how the workshop increased their awareness of Mar Menor issues and showcased the potential of technology in addressing them.

 

A picture taken during the introductory activity of the workshop session

 

Students designing the citizen science gamified app during the co-design activity

 

Some mock-ups of the co-designed gamified citizen science app