Internal communications
The internal communications within the program teams are an essential element of all citizen science programs, which is especially true for school citizen science programs (see, e.g., Zoellick et al., 2012; Benichou et al., 2023; Bopardikar et al., 2023). Interestingly, in school citizen science programs on marine litter, the internal project interactions are rarely being mentioned when discussing the communication strategies of these programs. For example, Catarino et al. (2023) extensively describe the communication between the coordinating team and the schoolteachers and their schoolchildren. They also emphasize the outreach communication beyond their participating community, but they do not mention the internal communications within the coordinating team. Araújo et al. (2022) also focused on the communication between citizen science coordinators and the teachers, highlighting the importance of suitable materials and consideration of the learning objectives for the schoolchildren; it is evident that they paid close attention to the preparation of suitable materials and activities, but the internal conversations that certainly must have taken place were not explicitly mentioned. Also, van der Velde et al. (2017) highlighted primarily the training of teachers and schoolchildren without mentioning the internal communications within their team, but their study design had previously been thoroughly tested by professional scientists (Hardesty et al., 2017).
In this contribution we describe the close interaction between scientists and citizen science coordinators and selected teachers who evaluate and test the research activities. Several reports emphasize the importance of efficient communication between teachers and scientists (e.g., Zoellick et al., 2012; Atias et al., 2023a), which is essential to guarantee straightforward research activities that have an appropriate duration and are adapted to the motivation and capacities of schoolchildren (Bopardikar et al., 2023; Kali et al., 2023). This also ensures mutual benefits for teachers (learning goals) and scientists (contribution to research), which is essential for successful school citizen science projects (Kali et al., 2020; Roche et al., 2020). The activities initially designed by our program team (scientists, citizen science coordinators, teacher) have (i) led to multiple peer-reviewed publications providing marine litter baselines that are being used by decision-makers (e.g., Cristi et al., 2020), and (ii) been implemented by several other programs in Latin America and Europe (e.g., Kiessling et al., 2019), proving their usefulness and the value of the hard work during the design phase of the research activities. Another project used a comparable approach with direct interaction of the scientist in the classroom (Nicosia et al., 2014), where scientist and teacher formed a close alliance in order to guide one course of high school students in autonomous research. The authors describe their collaboration as follows: “In an effort to address the need for a guided framework, scientists and teachers participating in our study engaged in explicit discussions about the nature of science related to existing classroom curriculum. The purpose of these discussions was to create a starting point for the investigation.” (Gray et al., 2012). We suggest to make these internal communications within the coordination teams more explicit because they are the foundation of most successful citizen science projects (Zoellick et al., 2012; Sagy et al., 2019; Atias et al., 2023b; Benichou et al., 2023).
Scientists participating in citizen science programs are often highly motivated, having strong intentions to return scientific insights to society while simultaneously contributing to scientific progress (Rambonnet et al., 2019). When scientists themselves have a strong interest in responding the scientific questions being investigated, the following evaluation and interpretation of the findings will have a higher probability to result in the advancement of knowledge (e.g., Nelms et al., 2022; Dittmann et al., 2023; Jadallah and Wise, 2023).
Continuous communication with teachers
The citizen science coordinators from our program team are in regular contact with teachers and are always available to respond to questions during the main research phase. This is essential to guarantee the successful and correct application of the research guides, which is the first foundation for valid research data (see also Dittmann et al., 2022; Bopardikar et al., 2023).
The close involvement of the program scientists during the process also helps to resolve unexpected problems (e.g., due to climatic events) and take rapid decisions. For example, one consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic was that schools were not functioning and the research activities simply could not be conducted, similar as in a number of other citizen science programs during that period (e.g., Rose et al., 2020; Coldren, 2022). However, the strong sense of community in our project allowed us to develop alternative activities (e.g., Praet et al., 2023), and to readily restart activities when schools started to function again (e.g., Richter et al., 2021).
The intense communication between the citizen science coordinators and the teachers also leads to good knowledge about the professional and personal situation of each teacher. For example, the coordinators knew when climate or other external events led to delays in the realization of the learning and research guides, when a teacher was sick, and also when teachers conducted additional activities motivated by their participation on the network. The in-person training workshops created personal links and friendships among the teachers and scientists, promoting a feeling of community (see also Atias et al., 2023b). These personal relationships were especially relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, when not only the program team but also many teachers faced unexpected challenges and personal hardship. Regular, appreciatory communication has also been shown to cause a stronger commitment by citizen scientists in other projects (Anderson et al., 2020; Rüfenacht et al., 2021; Nelms et al., 2022). It should also be highlighted that the citizen science coordinators have excellent interpersonal communication skills (confirmed by the evaluation surveys and personal conversations with the teachers), which helped to build and consolidate personal relationships among the program team and the teachers. These aspects are rarely being considered when discussing citizen science communications, yet they are the essential backbone of our network.
Rapid evaluation of data and preparation of outreach materials/activities
One of the major challenges for many citizen science programs is the time between collection of the samples/data (meaning in many cases the active involvement of the citizen scientists) and the proper evaluation of the results, which is essential to answer the corresponding scientific questions. This process leads to long delays of approximately 3 years or more between data collection and publication (Christie et al., 2021) and citizen science projects are no exception to this (Dittmann et al., 2023). During the first 10 years of the program, the average time between completion of the research and publication of the results was approximately 2 years, but this period has increased since the program became larger (now involving schools from up to 11 different countries) and more rigorous data validation steps were implemented. Naturally, the teachers and their schoolchildren are very keen to learn about the findings of the collaborative research projects, just as in many other citizen science projects (e.g., Richter et al., 2021). The careful design of the research question and simple methods of data collection allow for rapid preliminary evaluation of the data, and the program team prepared brief reports in Spanish for teachers and schoolchildren within two to 3 months after the data-collecting period had ended (freely available at www.cientificosdelabasura.cl). These reports are also frequently shared with the general public via social media (Facebook, Instagram) and also traditional media (e.g., newspapers).
Teachers and their schoolchildren are also supported in evaluating their findings and planning and implementing actions, which typically are outreach events, such as science fairs, public talks, infographics, or social media posts. Sharing data with the general public (and not only among themselves) is an important motivation for many citizens who have participated in a citizen science project (Ferster et al., 2013; de Vries et al., 2019). Often the communication of results are done by the program teams (e.g., Le Coz et al., 2016; Catarino et al., 2023), but the citizen scientists themselves can be excellent communicators of the research findings and conclusions. The schoolchildren who participated in the research projects of the Latin-American Network were very interested in sharing their results with others, and they were very creative in preparing different outreach materials and activities (Figure 4).
While schoolchildren are willing to engage in outreach and taking actions about the litter problem, participation in citizen science programs only leads to marginal increases in pro-environmental behaviors (Oturai et al., 2022; Wichmann et al., 2022), similar as in other environmental education projects (e.g., Praet et al., 2023). This is generally attributed to the short period of participation, highlighting the need for continued engagement of schoolchildren (and other citizen scientists) in these activities (Oturai et al., 2022; Wichmann et al., 2022; Praet et al., 2023).
Sharing scientific findings with others can be highly empowering to schoolchildren (e.g., Dublin et al., 2014) or strengthen place-attachment in volunteer participants (e.g., Toomey et al., 2020). If schoolchildren are able to engage their families or local communities, there is even the potential to reach and positively influence a wider audience (Vaughan et al., 2003). Another positive aspect of engaging citizen science volunteers in outreach activities is that they self-identify stronger with “their” program and might be more likely to continue in future research studies (Rambonnet et al., 2019). In addition, the volunteers might reach specific stakeholders, which the program team might not easily reach, e.g., parents and local decision-makers (Vaughan et al., 2003; Rambonnet et al., 2019). If citizen science programs communicate effectively with decision-makers and other stakeholders, the probability that data and findings contribute towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will increase substantially (Gacutan et al., 2023).
Critical aspects of communication
The communication strategy of the Científicos de la Basura program is very labor- and time-intensive, which has several implications. The attention given to individual teachers means that the number of teachers that the citizen science coordinators can accompany in their research activities is limited, typically around 30 to 50 teachers. These numbers are far below those of other citizen science programs collaborating with teachers and schoolchildren, which can reach hundreds of teachers (e.g., Kiessling et al., 2019) or thousands of schoolchildren (e.g., Oturai et al., 2022). However, the strong personal bonds developed during in-person workshops and the research projects create a strong mutual commitment both in the program team as well as in the teachers (e.g., Rüfenacht et al., 2021). This was demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when program team and teachers met regularly in videocalls (first on a weekly basis, later on a biweekly or monthly basis) offering mutual support during this time of personal hardship and professional stress, which especially many teachers experienced (Rasmitadila et al., 2020; Sigursteinsdottir and Rafnsdottir, 2022). During these meetings we occasionally discussed scientific publications on the marine litter problem and even invited colleagues from other countries to share some of their insights with the teachers from the network. After sharing concerns about the wellbeing of their schoolchildren during these meetings, one teacher was inspired by one of those publications (Schofield et al., 2020) and encouraged the program team to develop an app that allows schoolchildren to tell stories on the phone or computer; 80 schoolchildren then used that opportunity and shared their views and ideas about marine litter (Praet et al., 2023).
The intense communication between citizen science coordinators and teachers as being practiced by our program has important time requirements (e.g., Benichou et al., 2023; Jadallah and Wise, 2023), which may not be feasible for other citizen science programs. In the Científicos de la Basura program this approach has evolved over time, taking into account the high workload of teachers in Latin America. The close communication and careful adjustment of the research projects to the realities of the school teachers helps them in achieving the learning objectives for their schoolchildren. Certainly, there are still some difficulties that our program needs to overcome, such as incorporating professional communicators (i.e., journalists) and lowering the high personal strain on the fully committed program coordinators who often interact with teachers outside of regular working hours. Nevertheless, we suggest that other citizen science programs working in similar socio-economic environments might benefit from similar approaches to those employed in our program: engaging in close communication and receiving regular feedback from their volunteer collaborators, whether these come from schools or other societal backgrounds.